HeartBeat.bio, a Vienna, Austria-based biotech company focused on building a highly scalable human organoid and AI-supported drug discovery platform for heart disease, closed a €4.5 million Pre-Series A funding.
SaaS Investors
The round was co-led by i&i Biotech Fund, Invest AG, aws Gründungsfonds II, and Tensor Ventures.
i&i Bio is a Luxembourg-based venture capital firm that invests in innovative European Life Sciences companies focused on drug discoveries, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health. The Fund was created thanks to the cooperation of the biotech incubator i&i Prague and the European Investment Fund (see below). With over € 53 million under management, i&i Bio plans to invest in about 20 early-stage companies.
Invest AG is the leading Austrian private equity fund specializing in providing equity, quasi-equity, and mezzanine capital to companies of various sizes. With its evergreen fund structure, Invest AG has strong presence in Austria, the German market, and Switzerland for almost 30 years and currently manages fund assets of around half a billion Euros.
The aws Gründungsfonds II is an Austrian venture capital fund with a fund volume of around € 70 million. As a seed investor, we support start-ups from the first growth phase through further follow-up financing rounds (Series A/B) to exit
Tensor Ventures is a global deep tech fund based in Prague and Luxembourg, founded by Roman Smola, Martin Drdúl, and Petr Ulvr. The fund supports revolutionary ideas of deep tech startups at an early stage of development. Currently, Tensor Ventures‘ portfolio consists of more than twenty startups from Europe, the UK, Israel, the US, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
HeartBeat.bio Use of Funds
The funding will support the development of a ready-to-use, automated Cardioid Drug Discovery Platform for drug discovery programs related to cardiomyopathies, myocardial infarction, and fibrosis.
About HeartBeat.bio
Founded in 2021, HeartBeat.bio is building the first high-throughput human organoid cultivation, screening, and AI-supported data analysis solution for developing first-in-class drugs to treat heart failure; faster, less expensively, and with a higher probability of success in clinical trials. HeartBeat.bio's technology combines scalable Cardioid technology with Molecular Devices’ CellXpress.ai™ Automated Cell Culture System and AI-based software to develop first-in-class drugs more efficiently. The so-called Cardioid Drug Discovery Platform relies on self-assembling, highly reproducible cardiac organoids which recapitulate the human physiology and enable modeling of heart diseases in a way not achieved with other in-vitro systems. Currently, HeartBeat.bio is focused on drug-induced and different sub-types of genetic cardiomyopathies, followed by programs in diabetic cardiomyopathy, myocardial infarction, and cardiac remodeling.
Funding Details
Company: HeartBeat.bio AG
Raised: €4.5M
Round: Pre-Series A
Funding Month: November 2023
Lead Investors: i&i Biotech Fund, Invest AG, aws Gründungsfonds II, and Tensor Ventures
Additional Investors:
Company Website: https://heartbeat.bio/
Software Category: Drug Discovery Platform for Heart Disease
Source: https://heartbeat.bio/2023/11/02/heartbeat-bio-raises-e-4-5-million-in-pre-series-a-financingto-drive-development-of-organoid-screening-platform-for-cardiac-drug-discovery/