Singapore-based cancer antibody developer Hummingbird Bioscience has closed an extended Series B round at $25 million led by South Korean conglomerate SK Holdings.
Existing shareholders who participated in the round include private equity and venture capital firm Heritas Capital, and SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore. Previous backers include Mirae Asset Venture Investment and GNTech Venture Capital.
DealStreetAsia reported earlier of the Series B extension, which was expected to be nearly $7 million, noting that Heritas Capital was pumping more cash into the biotech startup amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In December last year, Hummingbird Bioscience had first closed its Series B fundraising at $19 million.
Heritas Capital CEO Chik Wai Chiew said: “Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slow-down in investing, we are mindful that backing leading innovative biotech companies, especially players such as Hummingbird, to develop cures for addressing patients’ needs remains our priority.”
The latest capital injection brings the total amount that Hummingbird Bioscience has raised to $65 million.
“These new funds give us further resources to develop our early-stage pipeline, and support the clinical development of our lead programmes,” said Hummingbird Bioscience co-founder and CEO Dr Piers Ingram.
The company, founded in 2015, uses systems biology to develop a rational antibody discovery platform that is able to accurately identify key targets within the diseased cells, engineer molecules to hit those targets and effectively prevent the cell proteins from replicating.
The antibodies – anti-VISTA and anti-HER3 – have been demonstrated to have dramatically reduced the size of tumour samples in lab tests.
DealStreetAsia understands that Hummingbird Bioscience is also involved in the early stages of developing an antibody that targets the coronavirus.
