Univercells secures €3M Series A2 funding

Uni­ver­cells SA, a tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to deliv­er­ing inno­v­a­tive and cost-effec­tive bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing solu­tions, today announces the suc­cess­ful clos­ing of a €3 mil­lion ($3.56M) cap­i­tal increase in a Series‑A equi­ty financ­ing round, led by pri­vate investors. The pro­ceeds will sup­port the com­mer­cial roll-out of its viral plat­form and the com­ple­tion of its recom­bi­nant platform.

In addi­tion to the company’s founders and Take­da Ven­tures Inc. – who joined them in 2015 – Uni­ver­cells is pleased to wel­come a dozen pri­vate investors who embraced its mis­sion to make bio­log­ics avail­able and afford­able to all. Among them are US and EU-based exec­u­tives from the equip­ment devel­op­ment and vac­cines indus­tries, togeth­er with Bel­gian entre­pre­neurs. All bring a sig­nif­i­cant pro­fes­sion­al back­ground and are will­ing to mobi­lize their extend­ed net­work to posi­tion Uni­ver­cells’ inno­v­a­tive solu­tions on the glob­al mar­ket. The investors were impressed with the poten­tial of the inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy devel­oped by Uni­ver­cells, fos­tered by its recent achieve­ments and thought-through devel­op­ment roadmap.

In the com­ing months, this invest­ment will sup­port the com­mer­cial roll-out of Uni­ver­cells’ viral micro-facil­i­ty, with a first tech­nol­o­gy trans­fer antic­i­pat­ed for Q4 2018 with­in the frame­work of the Bill & Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion-sup­port­ed pro­gram. In addi­tion, the cap­i­tal will ben­e­fit the com­ple­tion of Uni­ver­cells’ inno­v­a­tive recom­bi­nant plat­form devel­op­ment, paving the way for the cost-effec­tive pro­duc­tion of biosim­i­lars. Both viral and recom­bi­nant solu­tions devel­oped at Uni­ver­cells address the same issue: the need for a suf­fi­cient sup­ply of high-qual­i­ty bio­log­ics at an afford­able price. By act­ing on this tech­nol­o­gy, Uni­ver­cells aims to shat­ter exist­ing bar­ri­ers in the bio­man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try to make a pos­i­tive change in glob­al access to healthcare.

“We are very proud of this fund­ing round and thank­ful for this wealth of sup­port”, com­ment­ed Hugues Bul­tot, co-founder and CEO of Uni­ver­cells. “This suc­cess­ful cap­i­tal increase is a real recog­ni­tion of the work achieved so far, the inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­o­gy being devel­oped and the clear expec­ta­tions and roadmap set. It is high­ly encour­ag­ing to have sea­soned indus­try experts demon­strate such tremen­dous con­fi­dence in Uni­ver­cells, its abil­i­ty to trans­form the indus­try with their will­ing­ness to con­tribute to our mission.”