News roundup 3 December 2018

Lab282: two years of drug discovery impact
OUI’s Gregg Bayes-Brown talks to Evotec’s Thomas Hanke about what Lab282 has achieved in its first two years and what is next for the partnership.
Kanova captures $16.6m series A
Biotherapeutics developer Kanova has secured capital from investors including Tsinghua University-managed Lotus Lake Ventures.
Elens articulates $21.6m
Provided by Matrix Partner China and Ceyuan Ventures, the series A capital will help Renmin natural language processing spinout Elens mature its product development and R&D capabilities.
Bitfury joins Plekhanov university for blockchain accelerator
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and Bitfury will pilot the program with Russian government funding in the latest of a series of blockchain-related projects announced by higher education institutions.
Stilla gets $18m series A result
Paris Saclay Seed Fund backed a series A round which will help the biotechnology company expand sales and launch a new product.
Fluidic Analytics characterises $31m
Cambridge Enterprise-backed Fluidic Analytics’ third funding round will help fund the launch of its first microfluidics-based protein analysis machine.
MooreElite gains series A ranking
The company has raised $14.4m from investors including Tsinghua University’s THG Ventures for its range of integrated circuit design services.
Sunamp heats up with $2.8m
University of Edinburgh’s Old College Capital has returned to back energy storage developer Sunamp to take the company’s total to $8.8m.
Nottingham Trent prepares for innovation centre
The university’s Enterprise Innovation Centre will house spinouts and act as a space for the university’s entrepreneurs to learn and collaborate with academics, researchers and businesses.
Ibex scans $1.3m round
IP Group is among the investors in x-ray technology developer Ibex Innovations’ latest round after backing a $3m round for the company in 2014.
InsGeek collects $14.4m
Legend Holdings has backed the insurance brokerage whose existing shareholders include Tsinghua Holdings and Fosun.
Engitix explores $6.4m series A
UCL spinout Engitix plans to develop therapeutics for liver fibrosis and certain cancers based on its targeted drug discovery platform.
Hopkins hops onto Parkwalk Advisors
Tom Hopkins will perform services he previously provided through consultancy Kin Capital while also helping Parkwalk strengthen its customer service.
24tidy cleans up with $30m series C
Xi’an Jiaotong University’s foundation was among the investors in domestic services booking platform 24tidy as the company increased its total to at least $62.7m.
Cheng faces NTU cheating charges
Cheng Choong Hung, formerly of Nanyang Technological University’s innovation arm, allegedly cheated organisations including NTU of $225,000.
Prescient Surgical stitches together $10m
Standford-StartX Fund has taken part in a $10m series B round for Prescient Surgical, which was led by Baxter Ventures.
Loyalty Prime redeems seven-figure round
Loyalty Prime has been backed by the VC affiliate of Technical University of Munich’s Unternehmertum as it builds the international profile of its loyalty scheme management software.
Uniiq patches MyLife with $340,000
University of Twente-founded MyLife Technologies will commercialise a microneedle-based dermal patch for administering therapeutic compounds.