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

Firm Wants To Ready Start-Ups For Series A Or M&A

Private Company Edition: Alexis Borisy and his Curie.Bio co-founders will invest $5m-$7m to help companies get to lead optimization within 12-18 months. Also, Feng Zhang-founded Aera launched with $193m, Hexagon Bio raised a $77.3m series B round and Halda emerged with $76m.  

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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.

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