Puridify $1.42m seed round is co-led by Imperial Innovations and SR One, and matched with public funds.
Puridify, a UCL spin-out based in London, has secured £850,000 ($1.42m) in a seed funding round co-led by Imperial Innovations, the technology transfer company of Imperical College London, and SR One, GlaxoSmithKline’s venture capital fund. UCL Business, the technology transfer office of University College London, also invested.
Purifidy also managed to attract matched-funding awards from the Technology Strategy Board, the UK government’s innovation agency, totalling £780,000 ($1.3m).
The spin-out is based on technology developed at the Advanced Centre for Biochemical Engineering at UCL, which was commercialised through UCL Business earlier this year. The company is developing a proprietary nanofibre technology which will improve the efficiency of purification in biopharmaceutical production. This will allow more drug product to be produced at a lower cost and in a shorter amount of time.
The company was the winner of the 2013 OneStart competition – founded by SR One and the Oxbridge Biotech Roundtable – which is designed to encourage young entrepreneurs. Puridify continues the UCL deparment’s six decade long history of working with industry to optimise biotherapeutic manufacture.
Oliver Hardick, CEO of Puridify, said: “Puridify has had a fantastic start in the biotech sector and has ambitious plans to bring its exciting platform purification technology to market. The support of leading venture capitalists like Imperial Innovations and SR One is critical to our commercialisation and will allow Puridify to develop value and expertise in UK bioprocessing.”
