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

Rey, a mental health subsidiary of UK-based digital mental health therapy developer Oxford VR, has raised $10m in series A funding co-led by Oxford Sciences Innovation, the venture fund of University of Oxford, and Optum Ventures, according to Forbes. The company has now secured $26m in its series A round, Forbes said, without offering further details. Rey launched three months ago and its parent company is a spinout of University of Oxford. Micropep Technologies, a France-based agricultural biotech spinout of Paul Sabatier University and CNRS, has raised €8.5m ($10m) in an oversubscribed series A round led by Supernova Invest, with participation from FMC Ventures, and existing investors Sofinnova Partners and IRDI Capital Investissement. The spinout raised $5m in its series A round in 2018. Amaroq Therapeutics, a New Zealand-based RNA therapy developer spun out of University of Otago, has raised NZ$14m ($9.7m) in a round featuring tech transfer subsidiary Otago Innovation and NZ Innovation Booster, a joint funding scheme for Otago and Victoria universities and financial data aggregator Booster Financial Services. The round was led by venture capital firm Brandon Capital, and also included investment fund Cure Kids Ventures. Amaroq is developing therapies for breast, colorectal and liver cancers based on long non-coding RNAs, the cellular molecules that are more commonly known as dark matter of the genome which function as key cell regulators. Azalea Vision, a Belgium-based healthtech developer focused on vision disorders and spun out of Ghent University and Imec, has closed an €8m ($9.7m) series A round led by Imec.xpand, with participation from Elaia, Sensinnovat and Shigeru. Opaque, a US-based developer of a platform to access sensitive data in the cloud, has raised $9.5m in a seed round led by Intel Capital, the corporate VC arm of chipmaker Intel, with participation from University of California, Berkeley-focused House Fund, Race Capital and FactoryHQ. Opaque emerged out of UC Berkeley’s RiseLab. Sea6 Energy, an India-based ocean farming company co-founded by Indian Institute of Technology Madras faculty, has collected $9m in a series B round led by Aqua Spark, with a contribution from Silverstrand Capital. Sea6 Energy had previously raised an undisclosed amount of series A funding from Tata Capital Innovation Fund, a vehicle for industrial group Tata Sons, in 2015, according to VCCircle. Suono Bio, a US-based developer of treatments for gastrointestinal diseases, has secured $8.5m in a series A round co-led by Axil Capital and Mizuho Securities Principal Investment, with participation from Taiwania Capital and unnamed others. Suono…

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Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).