Foresite et al. in $41.5m series-A for Bit Bio

The round was led by Richard Klausner, the former director of the National Cancer Institute and founder of Lyell Immunopharma.

Foresite is currently investing from its fourth-generation fund, which closed on $668m in 2018.

Existing backer Blueyard is a Germany-based venture capital investor.

US-based Arch Venture Partners provides investments from $50,000-150m.

The injection of funding is intended to enable Bit Bio to hire more staff and expand its operations.

Previous funding
Business angels Weslie Janeway, Nikolaus Starzacher, Jonathan Milner and Darrin Disley contributed £350,000 in 2017.

Blueyard also provided an undisclosed seed investment in 2019.

Company
Cambridge-based Bit Bio is a synthetic biology company focused on combining data science and biology to code cells. Coding can allow the reprogramming of stem cells to induce them to become liver, brain or immune system cells. The company was founded in 2016 as a spin-out from Cambridge University.

People
Bit Bio – Mark Kotter (founder, CEO).

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