SR One and Lilly Ventures, the corporate venturing divisions of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly respectively, have co-led a $24m series A round for US-based biopharmaceutical company Nimbus Discovery.
Together with venture capital firm Atlas Venture, the two corporate venturing units, the investors also included software comapny Microsfot co-founder Bill Gates, who had previously invested in the seed round in March. His investment was then reported as $10m of an undisclosed sum, funded by Gates, Atlas Venture and Richard Friesner, the co-founder of drug discovery company Schrodinger.
Founded in 2009 by Atlas and Schrodinger, Nimbus is looking to use computational drug discovery techniques to develop medicines around inflammation, cancer and metabolic disease, and wants to partner with larger pharmaceutical companies early in the process.
Kent Gossett, a partner at SR One, and Steve Hall, venture partner at Lilly Ventures, will join Nimbus’ board.
Gossett said: "We are excited by the advances that Nimbus has made in unlocking previously intractable targets. The Nimbus approach can deliver medicines that will transform the treatment of serious disease."