Netherlands-based biotech company Arcarios has gained its seed round from a large consortium of strategic and venture investors.
Arcarios was formed through a merger of Therosteon and a spin -off from Euronext-listed biotech company TiGenix alongside Dutch universities in Ghent and Leuven.
Venture capital (VC) firm BioGeneration Ventures led the undisclosed amount of funding for Arcarios, which is looking for disease-modifying therapeutics of bone and joint diseases.
BioGeneration Ventures was co-founded by the Netherlands Genomics Initiative, the University of Leiden’s NOW organisation and ABN Amro and the VC works with the Dutch bank’s private equity spin-out firm, Forbion Capital.
Alongside BioGeneration as investor are TiGenix; Ghent University’s Baekeland Fund; VC Erasmus MC Biomedical Fund targeting the Rotterdam region in the Netherlands; Gemma Frisius Fund KULeuven, a fund started in 1997 between Leuven university and European banks KBC and BNP Paribas; Vinnof (Vlaams Innovatiefonds – Flemish Innovation Fund,) which provides seed capital for start-ups based in Flanders; the Centre for Drug Design and Discovery’s CD3 fund at Leuven university; and Credit Agricole Private Equity, which manages €470m in venture capital for the French bank in technology and life sciences.