Singapore-based Biotech Startup Announces $5.6 Million Pre-A Financing Round Led By Multiple Investors

DotBio, a biopharma company specialized in next-generation antibody therapeutics with a particular focus on multi-specific antibodies for immuno-oncology, announced on August 7 that it had closed a USD 5.6 million pre-Series A financing round. This oversubscribed round was led by specialist life sciences investors Proxima Ventures, Gaorong Capital, and AIM-HI Accelerator Fund.

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Pre-A Financing Led By Multiple Specialist Life Science Investors

With a mission to harness next-generation antibody technologies to bring more effective therapies to patients, DotBio takes an innovative therapeutic approach toward the ideal treatment by prototyping multi-functional antibodies to identify molecules with synergistic activity combinations, optimal architectures and unique mechanisms of action. The company’s approach involves the use of its modular DotBody technology platform, its CoFi and Hot-CoFi stabilization technologies, high-throughput miniaturized assays and data analytics to generate unique therapeutic molecules that target both extracellular and intracellular disease drivers. 

Several investors participated in the latest round of pre-Series A funding, assisting the Singapore-based biopharmaceutical company in raising $5.6 million. Leading investors included Proxima Ventures, a specialist seed to growth healthcare venture capital firm based in Shanghai; Gaorong Capital, a venture capital firm specializing in new technologies and healthcare; as well as AIM-HI Accelerator Fund, a non-profit organization based in the United States. Additionally, life sciences investor Chaperone Investment participated in the round, along with animal immunotherapy startup Protect Biotech.

New Funds For R&D Endeavors and Expansion of Proprietary Platform

As per the news release from DotBio, the company will use the funds to commence pre-clinical studies, including animal efficacy and chemical, manufacturing and controls (CMC) studies, that will validate DotBio’s therapeutic candidates ahead of future clinical development. In addition, It will also scale up and automate its proprietary modular DotBody platform to enable the screening of thousands of multi-functional antibody prototypes to conduct research on new drugs and therapies for cancer treatment.

Ignacio Asial, DotBio’s Founder and CEO, stated that the oversubscribed financing round will allow the company to accelerate the development of an internal pipeline of multi-functional antibodies with the potential of treating  various cancers and improving patient lives. “We are making significant progress in developing intracellular antibody therapies, work that was highlighted in our Nature Communications publication in 2022. This round will allow us to accelerate these efforts, with the aim of revolutionizing how we target intracellular oncogenes,” said Asial.

According to Haolin Sung, Partner at Proxima Ventures, “DotBio’s approach to identifying and de-risking multispecific antibodies by comparing thousands of prototype molecules in a data-driven approach is at the cutting edge of science. I’m excited about the Company’s modular technology platform and believe it will open up unprecedented possibilities for patients around the world through the facilitation of rapid prototyping of potential new therapies that target both extracellular and intracellular disease drivers.”

Author

Richard Chau