Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

University venture fund University of Tokyo Edge Capital (Utec) has co-led a $7.5m round for India-based biopharmaceutical business Bugworks Research, the Economic Times reported today. Venture firm Global Brain co-led the round, which also featured healthcare investment company Acquipharma. Founded in 2014, Bugworks Research hopes to commercialise new antibiotics to treat bacterial infections and lessen the impact of anti-microbial resistance to existing drugs. The company’s pipeline focuses on a gyrase-topoisomerase inhibitor currently undergoing phase 1 studies in an intravenous form, with an oral equivalent progressing toward the clinic. Utec had already led Bugworks’ $9m series A round in 2018 with contributions from Acquipharma, 3One4 Capital and unnamed angel investors. Suono Bio, a US-based inflammatory-mediated disease drug delivery spinout of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), received an undisclosed sum on Tuesday from industrial product manufacturer NGK Spark Plug. The company’s co-founders include Giovanni Traverso and Robert Langer, both professors at MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. Suono Bio previously secured an undisclosed sum from diversified imaging and medical group Fujifilm in 2018, after a seed round backed by MIT-affiliated incubator and venture fund The Engine, Polaris and undisclosed investors in 2017. The company’s approach uses low-frequency ultrasound to accelerate delivery of therapeutic molecules into the body without the need for a capsule. Venture capital firm Elevate Ventures has invested pre-seed and seed funding in five businesses allied to Purdue University: autonomous farming equipment supplier Rabbit Tractors, microalgae chemical extracting technique creator Gen3Bio, home improvement sales platform BestQuote, lung function therapeutic materials developer Spirrow and designer eyewear subscription program Endless Eyewear. All five are clients of Purdue University’s entrepreneurship and commercialisation hub – Purdue Foundry – which partners Elevate Ventures in the Elevate Purdue Foundry Fund. The funding comes through the Elevate Nexus Pitch Competition, which awarded a total of $680,000 to 16 businesses. University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has formed US-based drug development spinout Neurexis Therapeutics in partnership with VIC Technology Venture Development. Neurexis will develop a drug candidate designated tatCN19o that is believed to inhibit cognitive and behavioral problems resulting from cerebral ischemia, a loss of blood flow to the brain caused by indications including stroke, cardiac arrest and sickle cell anaemia.

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