Extension of previous funding round brings total raised to £7 million GBP (circa $9.2 million USD)

Extension of previous funding round brings total raised to £7 million GBP (circa $9.2 million USD)

• Investment from Calculus Capital, Par Equity, and Scottish Enterprise
• Funding will support continued development of Axol’s human iPS cell lines and reagents, and expansion of its commercial team

Cambridge, UK, 7 April 2022: Axol Bioscience Ltd. (Axol), an established provider of iPSC-derived cells, media, and characterization services for life science discovery, today announced that it has raised £3.2 million GBP (circa $4.2 million USD) in the extension of its previous funding round, bringing the total raised to £7 million GBP (circa $9.2 million USD). The round was led by existing investors Calculus Capital, Par Equity and Scottish Enterprise, with support from Meltwind, including early investor Dr Jonathan Milner.

The funds will be used to bring new human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) products and service solutions for cardiac, neuroscience, and immune cell modeling to the drug discovery and screening markets, including Axol’s recently developed comprehensive in vitro proarrhythmia assay (CiPA)-validated human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Funding will enable Axol to further optimize cell culture quality and iPSC manufacturing capabilities at its Edinburgh, UK, site based at the Roslin Institute, as well as support recruitment efforts to expand its commercial team. It will also facilitate the continued development of the Company’s digital platform.

Liam Taylor, CEO, Axol Bioscience, commented: “At Axol, we’re setting a new standard in iPSC quality and manufacture. This investment enables us to continue to build and apply our quality-driven mindset to develop robust, reliable, ready-to-use iPSCs for pre-clinical R&D and drug development, as well as to focus on the expansion of our commercial team.” 

Dr Thomas Stratford, Interim Chairman, Axol Bioscience, added: “We are delighted to have secured additional funding from our existing investors in this oversubscribed round. This reflects both the potential of Axol’s iPSC technology and products, and the unrivalled expertise of our team. This investment reinforces our ongoing mission to develop the high-quality, validated human cell biology tools needed to drive innovation in medical research and drug discovery.” 

Dr Jonathan Milner, Investor and CEO, Meltwind, said: “Axol is well positioned in the global iPSC market to support advances in drug screening and discovery. We look forward to the Company’s future iPSC product developments, poised to provide more physiologically relevant and consistent human disease models and screening assays to, ultimately, progress next-generation therapies for neuroscience and cardiac diseases to the clinic, faster.”

About Calculus Capital

Calculus is a multi-award winning VCT and EIS fund manager. It received two Outstanding Contribution awards at the EIS Association 25th Anniversary Awards in 2019. It was voted Best EIS Investment Manager at the 2018 Growth Investor Awards. It has been named Best EIS Fund Manager five times at the EIS Association Awards and won Best Generalist EIS 2017/18 at the Investment Week Tax Efficiency Awards. It launched the UK’s first approved EIS fund in 1999 and has 20-year track record of investing in genuine UK growth companies.

Calculus has unparalleled experience of working with smaller UK companies to support their growth, development, scale-up and exit. It manages the multi-sector Calculus EIS Fund and Calculus VCT, as well as the UK Content Creation EIS Fund, which was launched in association with the BFI to deliver vital equity funding to the UK’s most promising content creation companies.

Calculus Capital is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority

About Par Equity

Par Equity is a leading venture capital firm, based in Edinburgh, investing in innovative, high growth technology companies in the North of the UK. Since it was founded in 2008, Par Equity has invested more than £84m across 61 companies, leveraging a further £135m of capital from third party investors.  Par’s investment focus is on enterprise technologies, and more specifically “deep tech”, i.e., companies with strong IP and technical expertise, including innovation across AI, photonics, energy storage, sensors, advanced materials, and nanotechnologies. The portfolio includes other rising stars like Current Health, Integrated Graphene, Qikserve, Cumulus and Novosound. Par’s investment approach is to combine the professionalism and rigour of a venture capital manager with the skills and expertise of a broad base of individual investors who can add value throughout the investment life cycle. This investment approach has produced strong and consistent returns across 22 realisations to date, gaining UK wide recognition. Most recently Par won the “Highly Commended” award in the Best EIS Fund Manager category at the 2020 EIS Association Awards.