Silvia Bio, a University of Sheffield biomanufacturing spinout, has raised a £3m seed round led by Northern Gritstone. The money will fund a move into its own laboratory and a tripling of headcount.
Silvia Bio works with pharmaceutical companies that use living mammalian cells as factories for biologic medicines. Those cells often produce too little product, which makes manufacturing slow and costly. The startup diagnoses why a cell line is underperforming, identifies the biological factors limiting output, and develops licensable additives that drop into existing bioreactors to raise yield and consistency.
It was co-founded by chief executive Ed Curry, Melinda Pohle, Professor Adam Brown and Professor David James. The technology builds on more than two decades of biomanufacturing research at the University of Sheffield.
The round
Northern Gritstone, the investment company backed by the universities of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, led the £3m seed. Other investors were the Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (managed by Future Planet Capital), Wren Capital and a group of angels.
The valuation and the university's retained equity were not disclosed. The syndicate is almost entirely made up of university-linked and patient capital vehicles. That pattern is common in northern spinout rounds, where institutional seed money is thinner than in the Oxford–Cambridge–London corridor.
Use of funds
The capital will take Silvia Bio out of university premises and into dedicated laboratory space at the Innovation Centre in Sheffield. The company plans to triple its team, automate processes that are currently manual, build out its commercial function and speed up development of new licensable products. It is also targeting international customers.
The licensing model matters for the cap table. Selling additives and know-how to manufacturers is typically less capital-intensive than building drug assets. That could reduce how often the company needs to return to investors for dilutive funding.
The commercial case
Manufacturing delays are expensive. Silvia Bio cites a Tufts University estimate that each day a medicine is held up can cost biopharma companies around £500,000 in lost sales. Curry said the platform shows manufacturers why their cells are underperforming and gives them fixes they can apply directly in production.
The deal adds to a growing list of Sheffield companies raising venture rounds this year. It is also another seed-stage lead for Northern Gritstone as it deploys capital across its three founding universities.
Original source: Startups Magazine — https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/silvia-bio-raises-3m-in-seed-funding
