SA国际传媒

Biotechnology startup drummed up $100 million in its newly announced and oversubscribed Series C funding round, company leaders announced Monday.

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The money will help the Boston-based cancer- and autoimmune disease-fighting startup push forward its pipeline of therapeutics through 2024, , company co-founder and CEO, told SA国际传媒 News.听

Funds from the round will also allow the company to advance its AI-driven technology, called Smart Allostery. The platform helps HotSpot scientists identify and target disease-causing proteins in the body, called 鈥渘atural hotspots,鈥� which company leaders say have traditionally been overlooked.听

HotSpot Therapeutics uses its Smart Allostery-derived data about those hotspots to tailor treatments to those proteins. The result, Montagu said, are therapeutics鈥攍ikely in the form of a pill鈥攖hat can better treat certain illnesses that aren鈥檛 easily cured with other available methods.听

鈥淲e’ve been able to, in each case really at a molecular level, define which cancers and which autoimmune diseases are going to best respond to our therapies,鈥� Montagu said. 鈥淭hat makes sure that we can actually get the right molecule to the right patient.鈥澛�

One of the company鈥檚 therapeutics will start clinical trials next year and could help treat lung cancer, Montagu said.听

The Series C was led by , with participation by and .听

, , and were new investors during the round. , , were returning investors. The funds were managed by and.听

鈥淲hat’s also super exciting for us is the mixture of health care venture attention as well as the technology sector,鈥� said , HotSpot co-founder and CSO. 鈥淚t鈥檚 having investors that are typically technology-focused investors, and really seeing the value of that interface between technology and medicine.鈥澛�

, venture partner at Pivotal bioVenture Partners, and , general partner at LSP, will join HotSpot Therapeutics鈥� board of directors.

The recent round brings HotSpot鈥檚 total venture funding to $190 million. Its $65 million Series B closed in May 2020.听

鈥淲e are thrilled to be partnering with HotSpot as they advance their pipeline to the clinic and realize the promise of delivering potentially lifesaving therapeutics to patients,鈥� Khanna said in a statement.听聽

HotSpot鈥檚 Series C comes as money flows into biotech and health care even faster than usual. Investments into venture-backed biotech and health care startups jumped from more than $82 billion in 2020 to almost $108 billion as of Oct. 31, 2021, SA国际传媒 data shows.听

While some of that new investment may have been drawn to the sector by the COVID-19 pandemic, HotSpot Therapeutics’ latest round shows that venture capital firms鈥� interests in the industry goes far beyond the current virus-induced health crisis.听

HotSpot has doubled its staff size over the pandemic and, while laboratory work generally cannot be done at home, the startup has tried to allow its workers to be remote as much as possible over the past year and a half.听

Now company leaders are looking ahead to building clinical trials for one of its therapeutics in the second half of 2021, , HotSpot COO, told SA国际传媒 News.听

鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to identify, as we think about the patient population we’d ultimately want to go after but also the experts in those fields, where are they located?鈥� she said. 鈥淲e’ve actually looked on a global scale already.鈥澛�

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias