Finance Watch: Founder-Friendly Curie.Bio Launches With $520m To Seed, Support New Companies

Curie.Bio launched on 14 February with $520m to provide $5m-$7m in seed financing per start-up, plus access to in-house expertise and external research services, to help new biopharmas generate enough preclinical data within 12-18 months and raise a series A venture capital round based on their best idea for a new drug. Co-founder Alexis Borisy said the Curie.Bio model could even help revive biopharma deal-making if start-up founders opt to sell their companies rather than raise more money.

The new venture capital firm was founded by a trio of company builders, including Borisy, who is also Curie.Bio’s operating chairman, along with CEO Zach Weinberg, and chief scientific officer Christoph Lengauer. Borisy is a former partner at Third Rock Ventures and a founding CEO and chairman of multiple biopharma firms, including EQRx, Inc. (Also see "EQRx Aims To Upend Industry’s Pricing Model, With Me-Too Drugs" - Scrip, 12 January, 2020.) Weinberg founded and sold the software companies Invite Media to Google in 2010 and Flatiron Health Inc. to Roche Holding AG for $1.9bn in 2018