Discovery Park Ventures expands early-stage life science fund to £3M

Discovery Park Ventures (DPV), the investment fund launched last year by Kent's science and innovation campus Discovery Park, has expanded its early-stage life science fund to £3m from £1m.

The first £1m tranche has now been fully invested, including in Optceutics Ltd - an ophthalmology drug developer - while two other investments will be announced shortly.

READ MORE: Kent's Discovery Park provides £324m of value to UK economy

Now the fund's investors have committed to an additional £2 million to invest in innovative start-ups. What’s more, it has plans to further expand the fund up to £25m in the next three years.

"Our portfolio of investments is making strong progress, and we are delighted by the support our investors have shown us with this second tranche of funding," said Mayer Schreiber, chair of Discovery Park Ventures and CEO of Discovery Park.

"It is the first step in Discovery Park Ventures’ planned expansion, and we look forward to working with regional investment groups and other funds as we grow."

The first transactions in the second tranche have been follow-on funding rounds into two existing portfolio companies, one of which is Ignota Labs - focused on preventing safety failures in drug discovery with Explainable AI.

New investments are also being reviewed, noted DPV.

DPV is presenting some of its portfolio at Giant Health's 'Healthcare Investment Show' in partnership with Discovery Park in London today (December 5).

DPV is an early-stage life sciences investment fund launched by Discovery Park to invest in novel and disruptive technology related to Discovery Park’s areas of focus.

Investee companies have strong collaborative relationships with Discovery Park or may be a tenant. These companies include Vitarka Therapeutics, VisusNano, Booby Biome, Neobe Therapeutics, Ignota Labs, Oxford Medical Products and Optceutics.

Discovery Park in Sandwich is home to over 160 companies across a growing tenant community of dynamic start-ups through to global corporations, including Algaecytes, Canterbury Christ Church University, Concept Life Sciences, eXroid, Genea Biomedx, LGC, Pfizer, Psyros Diagnostics, Salvensis, Viatris, VisusNano and Wren Healthcare.

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