France-based food technology developer Targedys has raised €3.5m from life sciences company Zaluvida to extend its series A round to €10.4m ($11.1m).
The investment follows a €5.8m initial tranche secured from venture capital firms Seventure Partners and Pontifax, and NCI, a public-private partnership focused on the Normandy region, in April 2016. Bpifrance, France’s public investment bank, added €1.1m in non-dilutive funding in March this year.
Targedys is developing two products – ProbioSatys and ProbioNutrys – to regulate the appetite, targeting the bacteria in the human gut. ProbioSatys reduces hunger to tackle obesity, while ProbioNutrys stimulates it to tackle malnutrition.
The technology is based on research undertaken by professors Sergueï Fetissov and Pierre Déchelotte at Rouen University. The Targedys investment will accelerate and strengthen the company’s product and technology development.
Zaluvida’s chief executive Christoph Staeuble and its chief scientific officer Matthias Miller have joined the Targedys board of directors along with Danilo Casadei-Massari, founder of medical foods producer CM&D Pharma.
Staeuble said: “Targedys is well positioned at the forefront of human microbiome research and development, which I personally consider to be the ultimate frontier to address the obesity epidemic, therefore I am delighted that we are creating a partnership of like-minded teams to expedite the commercialisation of these breakthrough solutions.”