After raising $17 million in seed funding, immunotherapy-focused biotech company, LTZ Therapeutics Inc., is announcing plans for the fledgling company whose acronym stands for “Lift to Zenith.” CEO and co-founder Robert Li told BioWorld that the company’s three-tiered immunotherapy platform will focus on reducing immunosuppression, reprogramming innate immunity and modulating adaptive immunity.

Epitopea Ltd. raised $13.6 million in seed financing to take forward a new cancer immunotherapy platform based on the identification of a new class of tumor-specific antigens encoded by non-canonical genomic sequences.

Pangea Biomed Ltd. picked up $7 million in seed financing to fast-track development of its multicancer, multitherapy response predictor Enlight. The platform combines machine learning and RNA sequencing to map tumor molecular signatures and predict how different cancer types will respond to oncology drugs. Pangea said instead of using transcriptomic data, it is utilizing ‘unsupervised’ AI techniques that harvest information about gene interactions.

Zeta Surgical Inc. has raised $5.2 million in seed funding to improve the accuracy and safety of image-guided surgical procedures through its Zeta neurosurgical navigation platform. Zeta CEO Jose Maria Amich told BioWorld the funding will also advance a non-invasive ultrasound system for imaging the brain and help complete initial clinical studies for its FDA approvals application.

To counter the worldwide growth of antimicrobial resistance, a subject of worldwide concern but little actual progress, Arrepath Inc. has raised a $20 million seed financing to advance its machine learning-based platform for discovering new classes of anti-infectives.

U.K. startup Tympahealth Technologies Ltd. has received $8 million in seed financing for commercialization of its point-of-care hearing health assessment system. The Tympa system is a CE marked and FDA-registered device for high-resolution ear drum visualization, ear wax removal and hearing screening assessments. Health care entrepreneurs Maurice Ferre and Arjun Desai led the financing round.

Investors including SOSV, Cultivate(MD), Wavemaker360 Health, Blu Venture Investors and Broad Street Angels are backing Strados Labs LLC with $4.5 million. The pre-series A funding will be used to accelerate development of the company’s smart sensor platform Resp. The funding comes after Strados received FDA clearance for the product in December 2021 and brings its total raised to $7 million.

A new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery startup, Protai Bio, has emerged from stealth mode following an $8 million seed round led by Grove Ventures and Pitango Healthtech that will see the new company develop a platform to accelerate drug discovery.

LONDON – The global pandemic has put the term mRNA on lips worldwide, but vaccines apart, the field of RNA therapeutics has failed to overcome the problem of delivery and is stuck at first base, targeting the liver. Newco Sixfold Bioscience Ltd. is the latest company working to end this constraint, applying a mixture of computation and advanced chemistry to design tissue-specific RNA delivery systems.

PARIS – Dyameo SAS has successfully raised $1.13 million in seed funding to develop its endoscopy probe used for the instantaneous detection of cancerous cells. This round was led by  Medevice SAS and Aquiti Gestion SAS via its co-investment fund, NACO.