Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Montis Biosciences, a Belgium-based solid tumour cancer therapy spinout of KU Leuven and VIB, has launched with €8.4m ($9.1m) in seed funding from investors including Pfizer Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer. The round also included Polaris Partners, Alsa Ventures and Droia Ventures, with the latter also credited as a co-founder. Montis hopes to commercialise cancer treatments that exploit solid tumour interactions with perivascular macrophages, white blood cells responsible for directing immune cells into blood vessels. The seed funding will go to identifying and validating lead programs to progress into development, while also expanding Montis’s screening and assay technology.
Loyalty Prime, a Germany-based consumer loyalty program technology developer, has completed a €5m ($5.4m) series B round backed by Unternehmertum Venture Capital (UVC) Partners, the venture capital affiliate of Technical University of Munich’s tech transfer office, Unternehmertum. Venture fund Hi Inov led the round, which also included SaaSGarage, Senovo Capital and BayBG Bayerische Beteiligungsgesellschaft. The funding will help push the artificial intelligence part of Loyalty Prime’s software, which helps enterprises launch and manage customer loyalty schemes. Loyalty Prime closed a $1.6m series A round featuring UVC Partners, Senovo and angel investor Alexander Bruehl in 2017, before the same trio joined BayBG for a seven-figure euro (€1m = $1.1m) round the following year, according to media reports.
