Magnitude Biosciences, a UK-based company founded in 2018, has raised €1.5 million in a new funding round. Northstar Ventures led the investment through its North East Spinout Inspire Fund, North East Innovation Fund, and Northstar EIS Growth Fund. The round also included participation from Maven’s regional funds and several angel investors.
The financing triggered an additional grant of €253,000 from the Innovate UK Investor Partnership. The company plans to use these funds to scale its VivoScan platform, which performs in-vivo drug discovery. The technology utilizes C. elegans worms combined with robotics, automated imaging, and AI to screen large numbers of compounds within a living organism.
The platform aims to accelerate the identification of drug candidates, particularly for neurodegenerative diseases and aging. By providing biological data from whole organisms, the company intends to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms improve the speed and cost-effectiveness of their preclinical research processes.
The investment follows a series of recent funding activities in the European preclinical drug discovery sector. According to EU-Startups, seven related companies have raised a combined total of approximately €21.6 million this year, including firms such as Sightera Biosciences, FluoSphera, ALP Bio, and Exobiosphere.
