Round Of Funding Research Articles

Synthekine launches to engineer cytokines

Synthekine has launched with $82 million in its first formal funding round to engineer cytokines to make them safer and more effective as treatments for cancer and immune disease. The biotech firm,...

Zymergen raises another $300 million

The California-based synthetic biology firm Zymergen has raised $300 million in its fourth round of funding, led by the UK pension and trust investment firm Baillie Gifford, an undisclosed sovereig...

Factors Responsible for the Success of a Start-up: A Meta-Analytic Approach

This article aims to determine factors crucial for the performance of new ventures by performing a meta-analysis. It evaluates the performance of machine learning and statistical models by selecting 19 studies through preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). The results obtained were graphically represented using forest plots. A subjective analysis of the studies revealed “business plan,” “market scope,” “team size,” “service timing,” “market growth,” and “age of the entrepreneur” as crucial factors for deciding the performance of the new ventures. In machine learning model-based studies, the combined model was found to be statistically significant. The variables, namely, “seed funding,” “funding rounds,” “location,” “social media presence,” “team size,” “number of founding members,” and “defunct date” affect the predictive capability of these models. The implications of this article can be applied by start-ups to reduce uncertainty and enhance performance.

Triumvira raises funds for T-cell drugs

Triumvira Immunologics has completed a $55 million series A funding round led by Northpond Ventures and Leaps by Bayer, a Bayer investment arm. The Austin, Texas–based firm was founded in 2015 to c...

Mori raises funds for silk food coating

Mori, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off formerly known as Cambridge Crops, has raised $12 million in a first round of funding from Acre Venture Partners and other investors to scale ...

Alt-dairy protein firm nets $300 million

The California start-up Perfect Day has added $160 million to an initial $140 million round from investors to boost output of fermentation-derived dairy proteins. The latest funding round was led b...

Enko raises $45 million for pesticide discovery

Enko Chem, a Boston-area start-up specializing in small-molecule pest control products, has raised $45 million in a second round of funding led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, bringing its ...

An analysis of timing decision in venture capital staged financing: evidence from India

Purpose Staged financing is a prominent feature of the venture capital investment process. With staged financing, venture capitalists (VCs) may choose to either make an investment or delay it at each round. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of market uncertainty, project-specific uncertainty and agency problems on these decisions. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data from Indian firms that received venture capital funding between 2000 and 2017. The duration between funding rounds is analysed using survival analysis. An accelerated failure time model is used to estimate the influence of market uncertainty, project-specific uncertainty and agency problems on the length of time between funding rounds. Findings VCs delay investment when there are high levels of uncertainty in the market; if market uncertainty increases by 1%, delay in funding increases by more than 6% (almost a month) on average. There is no statistically significant relationship found between the funding duration and project-specific uncertainty. Agency problems motivate VCs to invest sooner. An increase in agency problems results in a reduction of 55% (almost five months) in the length of time before the next funding round. Practical implications This study has useful business policy implications. It provides VCs with real option value drivers such as market uncertainty, agency problems, which influence the timing of decisions in staged investment processes. It will help to make the choice between investing and delaying at each round of financing more robust. Further, it is useful for VCs to differentiate between market uncertainty and agency problems against the backdrop of their different implications for staging decisions. Originality/value Few studies have examined staging decisions from a real options perspective in the context of a developed economy and very few from a developing economy perspective. This study increases understanding of staging decisions in the Indian context.

Worn Again raises funds for textile reuse

The British start-up Worn Again Technologies has raised about $10 million in a funding round that includes existing investors like the clothing brand H&M and the Swiss engineering firm Sulzer. Worn...

Sana unveils mega funding round

Engineered cell therapy–focused Sana Biotechnology has completed its initial funding round, bringing in a whopping $700 million. The funds will be used to develop preclinical drug candidates, estab...

Cloud Computing Start-ups and Emerging Technologies: From Private Investors' Perspectives

ABSTRACTWe examine private investors' funding preferences for cloud computing start-ups that provide services in various information technology (IT) areas. The funding preference is measured in funding size and frequency. Using data from CrunchBase, an unconventional dynamic database, we find significantly positive associations between the funding preference and the cloud computing services provided in IT security, and Big Data and data analytics among cloud computing start-ups that have received at least two rounds of funding. The association is negatively significant when the cloud computing services are provided in ERP systems and when the funding preference is measured only in size. The results suggest that private investors differentiate among start-ups by specific technology and the lifecycle of the technology. During the sample period of rapid growth in the cloud computing industry, we document that the funding preference by private investors favors start-ups that provide services in critical, newer, and fast-growing IT areas.Data Availability: Data are derived from a publicly available source.

Capital gains taxation and funding for start-ups

We examine how capital gains taxes affect investment in private start-up (i.e., pre-IPO) firms. Using data on capital raised in individual funding rounds, we estimate the effect of the 2010 SBJA, which implemented a full exemption from federal capital gains tax on the sale of qualified shares. Because of the resulting higher expected after-tax returns, we hypothesize and find evidence consistent with this capital gains tax reduction increasing the amount of investment in start-up firms per funding round by about 12%. The effect is stronger in start-up firms that are likely to have greater administrative capacity. We estimate that about one-third of the tax benefit is captured by investors.

Seraphina launches with new fatty acid

Seraphina Therapeutics has raised $5.5 million in a first funding round, led by Domain Associates, to advance dietary supplements and food fortifiers made from pentadecanoic acid, a trace odd-chain saturated fatty acid found in butter and some fish and plants. The California-based firm claims that the acid, also called C15:0, is potentially essential to cardiometabolic and liver health. C15:0 was discovered by Stephanie Venn-Watson, Seraphina’s CEO. The company plans to launch C15:0 supplements this fall.

ZAF raises funds for NiZn batteries

Missouri-based ZAF Energy Systems has raised $22 million in a first round of funding from Elevage Capital Management, Catalus Capital, and others to speed commercialization of its nickel-zinc batte...

How venture capitalists evaluate young innovative company patent portfolios: empirical evidence from Europe

PurposeThis paper analyzes the importance given by venture capital (VC) firms to the different characteristics of the patent portfolio of a young innovative company (YIC). In an attempt to go beyond previous studies, the authors argue that not only is the size of a technological portfolio significant but also its nature. It is also examined whether the correlation between patents and VC financing varies across different industrial sectors and over different rounds of VC investments.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis has focused on a sample of 1,096 European YICs between the years 2010 and 2014. Target companies were identified in the monthly bulletins of Go4Venture, which reported the largest European deals and gathered information on the amount of VC financing. Additional data was derived from FinSMEs and crunchbase. Industrial sectors were differentiated according to their ability to appropriate the returns of innovation by relying on patent protection mechanisms. A multivariate regression framework at the patent family level was adopted to investigate empirical associations between the amount of VC financing and the characteristics of a YIC's patent portfolio.FindingsThe results confirm the positive value of patents. Both the size and the characteristics of a YIC patent portfolio have been found to be positively associated with the total amount of VC financing. Additionally, the correlation between a YIC patent portfolio and VC investment varies across industries and over rounds of funding. Although the number of patents is positively correlated with VC investments in sectors with strong Intellectual Property (IP) regimes, the same does not apply to sectors characterized by lower patent intensity, where qualitative metrics seem to have a stronger correlation. Significant differences have also been found for the different rounds of VC investments.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of this paper are related to data availability. Empirical associations have been investigated, but causal effects cannot be ascertained in this framework. The authors focused on a sample of firms that received VC funding. Several transactions were excluded, due to a lack of specifications pertaining to the round series. Furthermore, a number of potential drivers of the financed amounts, such as variables related to the founder or the management team, have not been considered in this study.Practical implicationsFor firms operating in sectors with weak IP regimes, patents are positively associated with attracting equity capital, if they are the output of R&D collaborations and have higher technical merit. In industries where patent intensity is higher, patent portfolio size matters more than quality. This suggests that VC investors award innovation quality to cases in which patenting is less frequent. Since the results indicate that positive associations between patenting and VC financing are more significant in later stages, managers should plan their patenting strategy in advance to reap the related benefits, and then collect the premium at later VC stages.Originality/valueIn this paper, the importance given by VC firms to different characteristics of a YIC patent portfolio has been analyzed in terms of size, quality, and complexity. While previous empirical analyses mainly focused on a single sector, the authors have examined whether the relevance of patents for VC financing decisions varies across industries and over different rounds of investment. The geographical coverage of the sample is another novelty of the paper. Previous works focused on a limited number of countries, whereas this research has considered firms operating in several European countries.

Fake-meat firms raise funds for growth

Faux-meat firms are poised to increase capacity and product introductions thanks to new investment. Impossible Foods has received an equity injection of $500 million from Mirae Asset Global Investments, Khosla Ventures, and others, bringing its total funding to $1.3 billion. The company, famous for plant-based burgers that “bleed,” is adding a pork substitute and has quadrupled production capacity. Meanwhile, Nature’s Fynd—formerly Sustainable Bioproducts, a C&EN Start-Up to Watch in 2019—raised $80 million in a new funding round. The firm is developing meat-like products from fungal mycelium.

Innovation in Antimicrobial Resistance: The CARB-X Perspective.

The spread of drug-resistant bacterial pathogens has been recognized as one of the largest global threats to mankind. In order to continue to benefit from the advancement of modern medicine, new treatments, prevention, and diagnostic products are needed to satisfactorily treat or prevent infections. Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) is a global nonprofit public-private partnership dedicated to accelerating antibacterial-related research to tackle the rising threat of drug-resistant bacteria. The CARB-X portfolio is the world's largest early development pipeline of new antibiotics, vaccines, rapid diagnostics, and other products to prevent, diagnose, and treat life-threatening bacterial infections. Since inception, three application rounds of funding have been completed with a significant worldwide response.

Fintech in Hong Kong – Blockchain, Business Model, and Challenges

Financial technology (FinTech) is an emergent industry that combines two traditional industries: finance and technology. FinTech transforms and innovates the finance industry with up-to-date technology to provide efficiency to the capital market and financial service providers. This teaching case will discuss a Hong Kong Fintech start-up, how it formed, and how it raised the first round of venture capital funding to kick-start the company. A business plan and decision analysis are also presented in this case.

Culture raises funds for bioreactor service

Culture Biosciences has raised $15 million in a first round of funding led by Cultivian Sandbox Ventures. San Francisco–based Culture serves companies working to scale up synthetic biology discoveries by renting bioreactors that connect to the cloud. Many companies have a backlog of potential products such as alternative proteins, biobased chemicals, and pharmaceuticals to try out at scale but lack facilities to move them forward, Culture says. Its clients include Zymergen, Clara Foods, Nektar Therapeutics, C16 Biosciences, and Boost Biomes.

Assessing health research grant applications: A retrospective comparative review of a one-stage versus a two-stage application assessment process.

BackgroundResearch funders use a wide variety of application assessment processes yet there is little evidence on their relative advantages and disadvantages. A broad distinction can be made between processes with a single stage assessment of full proposals and those that first invite an outline, with full proposals invited at a second stage only for those which are shortlisted. This paper examines the effects of changing from a one-stage to a two-stage process within the UK’s National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Programme which made this change in 2015.MethodsA retrospective comparative design was used to compare eight one-stage funding competitions (912 applications) with eight two-stage funding competitions (1090 applications). Comparisons were made between the number of applications submitted, number of peer and lay reviews required, the duration of the funding round, average external peer review scores, and the total costs involved.ResultsThere was a mean number of 114 applications per funding round for the one-stage process and 136 for the two-stage process. The one-stage process took a mean of 274 days and the two-stage process 348 days to complete, although those who were not funded (i.e. the majority) were informed at a mean of 195 days (mean 79 days earlier) under the two-stage process. The mean peer review score for full applications using the one-stage process was 6.46 and for the two-stage process 6.82 (5.6% difference using a 1–10 scale (with 10 being the highest), but there was no significant difference between the lay reviewer scores. The one-stage process required a mean of 423 peer reviews and 102 lay reviewers and the two-stage process required a mean of 208 peer reviews and 50 lay reviews (mean difference of 215 peer reviews and 52 lay reviews) per funding round. Overall cost per funding round changed from £148,908 for the one-stage process to £105,342 for the two-stage process saving approximately £43,566 per round.ConclusionWe conclude that a two-stage application process increases the number of applications submitted to a funding round, is less burdensome and more efficient for all those involved with the process, is cost effective and has a small increase in peer reviewer scores. For the addition of fewer than 11 weeks to the process substantial efficiencies are gained which benefit funders, applicants and science. Funding agencies should consider adopting a two-stage application assessment process.