Company	Investors	Use Of Proceeds
Unity Biotechnology Inc.; San Francisco	Unity raised $116m through its Series B round from new investors Arch Venture Partners, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Co., Partner Fund Management and Venrock, along with Bezos Expeditions and returning backers Wuxi PharmaTech and Mayo Clinic Ventures.	Unity is developing therapies to selectively eliminate senescent cells from the body to treat diseases of aging. Series B proceeds will help expand R&D activities and advance the first preclinical candidates (for inflammatory joint diseases and ophthalmic conditions) into clinical trials.
True North Therapeutics Inc.; South San Francisco	True North raised $45m in its oversubscribed Series D financing led by first-time backers HBM Partners and Redmile Group and returning shareholder Perceptive Advisors. Other existing investors and new backer Franklin Templeton Investments also participated. True North closed a $40m Series C round in December. (Also see "Patient Registries Prove Value As Drug Development Tools" - Scrip, 19 April, 2016.)	The company is creating rare disease therapies that inhibit the complement pathway. True North will use the funds for ongoing development of lead compound TNT009, which is in Phase Ia/II for cold agglutinin disease, warm autoimmune anemia, antibody-mediated rejection and bullous pemphigoid. (Also see "Biotech Stars And Startups Raise $168m In Venture Cash" - Scrip, 3 December, 2015.)
BlackThorn Therapeutics Inc.; South San Francisco	BlackThorn Therapeutics raised $40m in a Series A financing led by Arch Venture Partners. Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Altitude Life Science Ventures, Mercury Fund, Alexandria Real Estate Equities and an undisclosed crossover fund also participated.	The company was launched based on discoveries by Scripps Research Institute scientists Edward Roberts and Hugh Rosen involving the underlying physiology of neurobehavioral disorders and specific patient subpopulations. Lead program BTRX246040 is a first-in-class Phase II nociceptin receptor (NOPR) antagonist abandoned by Eli Lilly & Co., which had been developing the asset in major depressive disorder. BTRX246040 and BlackThorn’s preclinical pipeline is based on its INFORM (Integrated Functional Objective Research Measures) discovery and development platform, which connects brain pathophysiology and its relationship to behavior disorders. (Also see "Five promising approaches to expand the depression armory " - Scrip, 17 October, 2014.)
Emulate Inc.; Boston	Emulate raised $28m in its Series B financing round in March from existing investors Hansjörg Wyss, NanoDimension and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, who were joined by new investors OS Fund, Atel Ventures, the Leandro P. Rizzuto Foundation (ALS Finding a Cure) and Laboratory Corp of America Holdings. The company said on Oct. 20 that it raised an additional $17m from private individuals, institutional and non-institutional funds, bringing the Series B total to $45m. (Also see " VC Funding: Increasing Prior Rounds; New Strategy In Lieu Of An IPO? " - Scrip, 30 March, 2016.)	The organs-on-chips developer will use the proceeds to advance Emulate’s product design and development including for the launch of the Human Emulation System; for expansion of the Organ-Chip portfolio beyond liver, lung, intestine and skin; and for acceleration of disease-state applications for Organ-Chips.
Mavalon Therapeutics Ltd.; Strasbourg, France	VC firm Medicxi invested €9m ($9.9m) to launch a new UK pharmaceutical company, Mavalon Therapeutics, formed to advance Domain Therapeutics SA's small-molecule G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) pipeline in the area of Parkinson's disease (PD).	Mavalon aims to develop the first orally available glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) to induce dopamine neuron growth. The metabotropic glutamate receptor 4 (mGluR4) has demonstrated the ability to promote GDNF production when activated by glutamate release, which occurs when neurons in the brain of PD patients are degenerated. Domain initially discovered and developed an mGluR4 positive allosteric modulator (PAM) DT011088, which in proof-of-concept studies further induced GDNF expression in vitro and in vivo.

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