Funding Wrap of the Week | North American Startups Funding Roundup | Feb 11 – Feb 16

There are a lot of North American Startups Funding Deals for growth-stage and early-stage deals this week; Let’s talk about the Top 10 North American Startups Funding Deals.

The Top 10 North American Startups Funding Deals

DataBank

DataBank Raises $456 Million in Fourth Securitization of the Past Three Years. One hundred percent of the proceeds will be used to refinance a previous bridge loan put in place to purchase four data centers in the Houston market from CyrusOne in 2022 and to fund development of additional data center capacity across the DataBank platform.

Recognized by Deloitte as one of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies in 2023, DataBank helps the world’s largest enterprises, technology, and content providers ensure their data and applications are always on, always secure, always compliant, and ready to scale to meet the needs of the artificial intelligence era.

Freenome

Freenome secures $254million in funding from new and existing investors. Roche led the financing, joined by a16z Life Sciences Growth Fund, the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Ventures, ARK Investments, ArrowMark Partners, Artis Ventures, Bain Capital Life Sciences, Cormorant Capital, DCVC, Eventide Asset Management LLC, Intermountain Ventures.

Perceptive Advisors, Polaris Partners, Pura Vida Investments, Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX), RA Capital Management, Sands Capital, Section 32, Squarepoint Capital, with funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., and others.

Freenome is breaking barriers to early cancer detection with a suite of blood tests built on its multiomics platform. The company recognizes that no single technology can identify every cancer due to the inherent heterogeneity of the disease.

BioAge Labs

BioAge Labs secures $170million in series D round funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Investments. In addition to Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health, Longitude Capital, RA Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, RTW Investments, SV Health Investors, OrbiMed Advisors, Sands Capital, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Osage University Partners, Lilly Ventures, and Amgen Ventures invested.

In connection with the funding, Sofinnova Investments managing partner James Healy, M.D., Ph.D., will join BioAge as Chairman of the Board, and Longitude Capital managing director Patrick Enright will join as Board Director.

The funds will progress Phase 2 clinical trials of azelaprag, an apelin receptor (APJ) agonist, with Lilly’s Zepbound (tirzepatide) and therapeutic pipeline. BioAge, led by CEO Kristen Fortney, is a clinical-stage biotechnology business developing metabolic disease targets and therapeutics using human aging biology.

Lilac Solutions

Lilac Solutions secures $145million in series C round funding. Mercuria, Lowercarbon Capital, and Breakthrough Energy Ventures led the $315 million round, in which T. Rowe Price Association, Inc., Engine Ventures, Aventurine, Presidio Ventures (a Sumitomo Corporation Group Company), and BMW i Ventures were among the participants.

Lilac Solutions is a lithium extraction technology company based in Oakland, California. Lilac has developed a patented ion exchange technology that facilitates production of lithium from brine resources with high efficiency, minimal cost, and ultra-low environmental footprint.

ProfoundBio

ProfoundBio secures $112million in series B round funding. Ally Bridge Group led the round, with Nextech Invest and T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. funds and accounts participating. Janus Henderson Investors, RA Capital Management, OrbiMed, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel firm), Medicxi, Logos Capital, Octagon Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, LifeSci Venture Partners, and LAV and LYFE Capital have supported the company.

The investment will help the business develop its distinct clinical-stage ADC pipeline, including the crucial rinatabart sesutecan study. CEO Baiteng Zhao and COO and CFO Erin Lavelle lead ProfoundBio, a clinical-stage biotechnology business developing antibody-based cancer treatments.

Bugcrowd

Bugcrowd secures $102million in growth funding. This round was Led by General Catalyst, with participation from longtime existing investors Rally Ventures and Costanoa Ventures, this funding round underscores investor confidence in the company’s leadership position in the crowdsourced security market.

They are Bugcrowd. Since 2012, they have been empowering organizations to take back control and stay ahead of threat actors by uniting the collective ingenuity and expertise of their customers and trusted alliance of elite hackers, with their patented data and AI-powered Security Knowledge Platform™.

Alys Pharmaceuticals

Alys Pharmaceuticals secures $100million in funding from Medicxi. Eric Deutsch (Gustave Roussy), Craig Mello (UMass Chan Medical School), Brian Kim (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Lars French (LMU, Munich), and Mark Prausnitz (Georgia Institute of Technology) are the Nobel laureates. The company plans to provide seven to ten clinical Proof-of-Concept (POC) readouts in the next three years, with the possibility of at least one program moving forward to registrational studies.

Alys Pharmaceuticals, a global leader in immuno-dermatology innovation, was created in February 2024 by world-renowned dermatologists and scientists, including Medixci.

Overmoon

Overmoon secures $80million in equity and debt funding. NFX, Khosla Ventures, Camber Creek, 1Sharpe, Sunsar Capital, and other investors took part in the round. The money will be used by the company to grow both its operations and its clientele.

In order to build consistently fantastic vacation houses that you can trust with your holiday, Overmoon is purchasing homes all over the world, beginning with Florida. Every home on our network is owned by them, in contrast to holiday rental marketplaces or property managers.

Areteia Therapeutics

Areteia Therapeutics secures additional $75million in series A round funding from Marshall Wace and Viking Global Investors. whom Bain Capital Life Sciences led the initial investment syndicate that also included Access Biotechnology, GV, ARCH Venture Partners, Saturn Partners, Maverick Capital, Sanofi, and Population Health Partners.

The money will be used by the business to assist the extension of the ongoing Phase III dexpramipexole development program for eosinophilic asthma. Areteia Therapeutics is a new biotechnology business whose goal is to develop the first possible oral treatment for eosinophilic asthma, enabling patients to take back control of their life and better manage their illness.

NextPoint Therapeutics

NextPoint Therapeutics secures $42.5million in series B extension round funding The Extension was led by existing investor Catalio Capital Management, and as part of the financing, R. Jacob Vogelstein, PhD, has joined the NextPoint Board of Directors.

Catalio is joined by other existing investors including MPM BioImpact, Leaps by Bayer, Sanofi Ventures, Invus, Sixty Degree Capital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Binney Street Capital and NextPoint founder Gordon Freeman, PhD. Along with Catalio, new investors Arkin Bio-Capital and WTT investment Ltd were the largest participants in this fundraising.

NextPoint is advancing the field of immuno-oncology through its leading scientific work on the novel HHLA2 axis, also known as B7-H7. Their innovative approach integrates foundational science with a defined clinical biomarker strategy to deliver a new class of monotherapies for patients who do not benefit from PD-1/L1 inhibitors.

These startups played a major role in North American Startups Funding ecosystem in this week and secured funding from Venture Capitalists, Angle Investors in different funding Rounds.