HONG KONG –Nkmax America Inc., of Santa Ana, Calif., a natural killer (NK) cell-based therapy developer, has secured $11 million in a seed funding round. It is the company’s first funding round in the U.S. capital market. The company is owned by South Korean biotech firm Nkmax Co. Ltd. based in Seongnam.

San Francisco-based Velano Vascular Inc. has closed the second tranche of a $25 million financing that is slated to back ongoing commercialization of its PIVO device that uses an existing peripheral IV line for a blood draw. It also aims to roll-out a new, undisclosed product in 2020.

Aspen Neuroscience Inc. hopes to get into the clinic to test autologous neuron replacement in Parkinson’s disease with a $6.5 million seed round. The financing featured several established life sciences venture investors; it was led by Domain Associates and Axon Ventures and included Alexandria Venture Investments, Arch Venture Partners, Orbimed, and Section 32.

HONG KONG - With a corporate valuation of $1.04 billion, the South Korean biosimilar company Aprogen Inc. has become the country’s first biotech “unicorn,” according to U.S. market research firm CB Insights. Korea now ranks fifth, tied with Germany, in terms of the number of unicorns, with total of 11 unicorns, a term used to describe private ventures with $1 billion-plus valuations.

Caresyntax GmbH, a Berlin-based provider of surgical automation, analytics and AI software technologies, picked up $45.6 million in venture funding. The funds will be used to accelerate U.S. and global expansion and support continued development and deployment of Caresyntax products. Participating in the financing were Whiz Partners, a Takeda-back drug discovery gateway investment limited partnership, Plug and Play Tech Center, Barco Healthcare, Mitsubishi Corp., Relyens, IPF Partners and Caresyntax founders Dennis Kogan and Bjoern von Siemens.