Versant and RA lead €66m round for T-knife

Harriet Matthews
06 August 2020

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Versant Ventures and RA Capital Management have led a €66m series-A funding round for T-knife, an adoptive T-cell therapy developer based in Germany.

Existing investors Andera Partners and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) also participated in the round.

T-knife plans to use the fresh capital to support its US expansion and to hire a corresponding management team.

Following the round, Josh Resnick of RA Capital, Alex Mayweg of Versant, Olivier Litzka of Andera and Frank Kalkbrenner of BIVF will join the company's board, alongside co-founders Thomas Blankenstein and Elisa Kieback.

Biotechnology-focused Versant is currently investing from its seventh fund, which held a final close in December 2018 on $600m.

Andera is currently investing via funds including BioDiscovery V, which held a final close in February 2018 on €345m. The fund generally invests €10-20m in both early- and late-stage companies in the life sciences and medical devices sectors in Europe and the US.

Previous funding
Andera took part in a seed funding round for T-knife in December 2018.

Company
T-knife was founded in 2018 as a spinout from the Max-Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine with support of Charité University Hospital. The company develops humanised T-cell receptor (HuTCR) mouse platform technology that can be used in the treatment of solid tumours. T-knife has a number of follow-on drug candidates in preclinical development, according to a statement. The company has 12 employees, according to LinkedIn.

People
T-knife – Thomas Blankenstein (co-founder); Elisa Kieback (co-founder, CEO).
RA Capital Management – Josh Resnick (managing director).
Versant Ventures – Alex Mayweg (partner).
Andera Partners – Olivier Litzka (partner).
Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund – Frank Kalkbrenner (director, investment manager).