Alta Life Sciences, Kurma lead €3.5m series-A for Deepull
Venture capital houses Alta Life Sciences and Kurma Partners have led a €3.5m series-A round for Barcelona-based biotech startup Deepull.
The round also saw participation from Axis Participaciones Empresariales, which is backed by Spanish state-owned bank Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO); and Sofimac Innovation, through its fund Pertinence Invest 2, which is managed in partnership with Mérieux Equity Partners. The fund held a first close on €41m in June 2020.
Alta invested in Deepull via Alta Life Sciences Spain I, a life-sciences-dedicated venture capital fund that targets seed, early-stage and growth capital investments across several healthcare market segments, including biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics, genomics and digital health. The fund is managed by Spanish fund-of-funds Altamar Capital Partners, while Alta acts as investment adviser to the fund.
Kurma deployed capital from Kurma Biofund III, which held a final close on €160m in April 2020. The vehicle targets life sciences companies and deploys average tickets of €10m.
Deepull intends to use the fresh financing to further improve its technology and start the development of its first prototypes.
Company
Established in 2019 and based in Barcelona, Deepull specialises in the development of a new diagnostic system for detecting early symptoms of sepsis.
Deepull's proposal is based on quickly identifying the pathogens that cause sepsis and offering an antibiogram within a few hours, while using data about the patient's immunological and functional status to help doctors predict appearance and evolution of sepsis, and provide suitable clinical responses.
The startup uses artificial intelligence tools to extract key evidence about the interaction among infection, immune system response and patients' conditions to develop more effective diagnosis and treatments.
People
Deepull – Jordi Carrera (CEO, co-founder); Rafel Bru (co-founder).
Alta Life Sciences – Jose Antonio Mesa (partner).
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