VC-backed Bicycle Therapeutics raises £40m series-B

Additional new investors that took part in the round included Cambridge Innovation Capital and Longwood Fund. Bicycle's existing investors – Novartis Venture Fund, SR One (the healthcare venture fund of GlaxoSmithKline), SVLS and Atlas Venture – also participated.

Bicycle's lead molecule is expected to enter the clinic in 2017 in partnership with Cancer Research UK as a result of the fresh round of funding. The series-B will also fund additional pipeline programmes through early clinical development, the company said in a statement.

Previous funding
In October 2009, Atlas and Novartis invested seed funding in the company, marking Bicycle's first institutional funding round.

In December of the same year, SR One and SV Life Sciences injected further seed funding into the business, with the latter providing capital via its $523m SV Life Sciences Fund V.

In December 2012, the four existing investors were joined by new lead backer Astellas in a £3.75m round.

The UK biotech then secured £20m in funding from a syndicate of existing investors, including Atlas Venture and SV Life Sciences in 2014. Corporate healthcare venture funds Novartis Venture Fund, Astellas Venture Management and SR One took part in the round.

Company
Founded in 2009 as a spinout from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, Bicycle develops bicyclic peptides, a class of peptide molecules that are similar to antibodies but smaller in size and can be chemically synthesised.

Bicycle is currently developing these peptides as a therapeutic treatment for oncology and ophthalmology.

People
Bicycle Therapeutics – Kevin Lee (CEO).

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• Topics
• Early-stage
• UK / Ireland
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• Venture