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

EveryoneSocial, a US-based employee advocacy platform, has closed a $7.6m series A round led by University of Montana-backed venture firm Next Frontier Capital, with participation from Crane Group and Epic Ventures. The money will drive recruitment, client support, product development and market expansion. Blubrake, an Italy-based e-mobility company co-founded by Politecnico di Milano faculty, has raised €5.2m ($6.2m) in series A funding led by e-Novia – which had incubated Blubrake – and with participation from Progress Tech Transfer and assorted private investors, according to EU-Startups. The company has now reportedly raised more than €10m ($12.4m at current exchange rates) but it is unclear whether this includes non-dilutive or debt financing. Eternygen, a Germany-based developer of treatments for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, has raised an initial €5m ($5.9m) in series A2 funding led by drug discovery company Evotec, with participation from Epidarex Capital, IBB Ventures and several unnamed family offices. Eternygen was co-founded in 2012 by Prof Dr Andreas Birkenfeld who was then at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The company previously raised $8.5m in series A funding in January 2017 led by Epidarex, with contributions from Evotec, IBB and two unnamed family offices. WoHo, a US-based real estate software developer, has picked up $4.5m in seed funding led by The Engine, the venture firm and incubator set up by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). WoHo’s offering aims to integrate architecture, engineering and construction into a single platform in order to design and build affordable, sustainable housing. It was co-founded by chief executive Israel Ruiz, the founding chairman of The Engine who stepped down earlier this month to be replaced by Sue Siegel. Ruiz, who was also the treasurer of MIT, co-founded WoHo with  Anton Garcia-Abril, a professor of the School of Architecture at MIT, and Debora Mesa, the Ventulett chairwoman in architectural design at Georgia Tech University. DataChat, a US-based data analytics platform spun out of University of Wisconsin-Madison, has completed a $4m seed round co-led by WRVI Capital and Nepenthe Capital, with participation from private investors. DataChat has built a business intelligence platform that allows users to gain insights into data through conversational chats with the AI. PerioTrap Pharmaceuticals, a Germany-based periodontitis treatment developer spun out of Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, has collected €3m ($3.6m) in seed funding from the research organisation’s Fraunhofer Venture as well as BMP Ventures, I&I Prague and an unnamed strategic partner. PerioTrap emerged out of a research collaboration also involving Jagiellonian University, University of…

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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).