The seed round was led by Hoxton Ventures with backing from dRx Capital and Founders Factory.
"Our sole focus at Peptone is to embrace experimental failure and, in fact, acknowledge it as an absolutely vital stage in the process of getting the design of protein-based medicines right. Great science is always born out of failure. The reality is that drug discovery in Big Pharma sees only a small fraction of protein based drugs pass the preclinical stages due to their complexity. Pharma, just like any industry, is subject to the ‘power law’. A small number of innovative drugs generate disproportional benefits to patients and outsized capital returns. We are working on shifting this failure-to-success ratio in a meticulously predictable and repeatable way using the best computational methods and scalable data science. Only last week one of our clients produced a monoclonal antibody for which our platform suggested seven radical mutations. The said therapeutic protein got vastly improved. The probability of a human researcher being able to engineer this type of change is equal to 1/1,280,000,000. In layman terms you are four times more likely to win the Powerball lottery than to spontaneously find the solution our platform has identified in less than ten days. The business of protein therapeutics is a huge industry and as we grow and further develop our supercomputing capacity we can help make significant progress in the time to market for much sought-after protein-based treatments."
The funding package from Mercia will support team expansion and the wider rollout of the student engagement platform.
"Understanding student engagement and ensuring they have the right support has always been difficult for universities, but at a time when learning is moving online and students are spending more time alone, it is even more important. Solutionpath provides real-time feedback on how new practices are being received and enables them to spot vulnerable students or those at risk of dropping out."
The London-based property platform secured the capital to fund team expansion, technology development, and a secondary market launch.
"This is a great start to 2021 and a clear demonstration of the belief investors have in the future of this business and in the property sector in general, despite the uncertainty that was caused by the pandemic and Brexit."
The Series B round was led by bp ventures with participation from a global investor syndicate.
"We are very excited about the amazing endorsement we have received from new and existing investors. This round of investment marks a key chapter in Oxbotica’s continued growth and pushes us forward in commercialising our autonomous software today, through key strategic go-to-market partnerships. The high-quality and global footprint of our investors cements our position as a leader in autonomy. We will use funds raised to accelerate the global deployment of our transformative technology."
