We hope that you are looking forward to a warm summer!

We had a good closing of both the funds last month which also marked the end of tax year 2021-2022. o2h Ventures have stayed focused on building a strong pipeline of exciting early-stage biotech companies. We see strong deal flow at the Seed stage and the slight cooling of the markets has taken off some of the froth from the valuations which is not necessarily a bad thing when on the investing side!.

Several of our portfolios are closing Series A funding as the companies have now had a few years to cook, and on the whole, they seem to be on track. We expect new clinical data from both Small Pharma (TSX) and Exonate (Janssen) next month, so hopefully will be a positively busy time for us.

Whilst the markets are turbulent we keep our focus on big pharma as collaborative/exit partners. Not only did many of the large pharmaceutical companies have a boost to earnings due to ‘covid’ they have a defensive investment thesis.

Recent Investments:

Alevin Therapeutics – Alevin Therapeutics Ltd was founded in March 2022 with the aim of developing safe and effective medicines for patients with life-threatening diseases. Alevin Therapeutics is a spin-out from the University of Nottingham and is developing a platform of novel small molecule RGD integrin inhibitors with superior drug-like qualities.

Oxford Drug Design – Oxford Drug Design Limited, a biotech company with a proprietary computational and machine learning platform, has raised £2.2m in funding from existing investors ACF Investors, o2h Ventures, Meltwind Advisory, a number of returning angels and new investors and the US-based R42 Group.

Monument Therapeutics – Monument Therapeutics, Monument Tx is an independent UK based biotechnology company formed in 2019 as a spin-out from Cambridge Cognition. Monument Tx develops products to treat serious diseases of the central nervous system.

Deals Closing Soon:

Neurocentrx – o2h Ventures is pleased to announce an EIS investment into Neurocentrx Pharma Ltd, a psychedelic focused biotech company based in Edinburgh developing orally delivered drug product formulations of ketamine that are primarily aimed to treat mood disorders like Depression.

Spirea – Spirea Limited, a biotechnology company created to deliver the next generation of antibody drug conjugate (ADC) cancer therapeutics, has today announced that it has secured funding of £2.4 million.

Qkine – Based in the Cambridge Science Park, Qkine combines proprietary protein production processes developed at the University of Cambridge with protein engineering techniques to develop unique products that tackle fundamental biological and scale-up challenges.

Portfolio News:

• Arecor Therapeutics plc Presents Full Data from Positive Phase I Clinical Trial of AT278 Ultra-Concentrated Ultra-Rapid Acting Insulin for Diabetes At ATTD Meeting. Read more.
• PhoreMost expands into new facility at Unity Campus in Cambridge and promotes Dr Neil Torbett to Chief Executive Officer. Read more.
• Monument Therapeutics raises additional £0.5 million to take anti-neuroinflammation candidate MT1980 into clinic. Read more.
• Oppilotech and Evariste Technologies Announce Partnership to Develop First-in-Class Antibacterial Programme. Read more.
• Small Pharma hosted an evening salon event in London, bringing together a diverse group to connect and engage in important conversations about the future of psychedelic therapy for mentalhealth. See here.

Events:

Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures featured in the Biotech-focused investment event hosted by The Chicago Booth Angels Network of London.

SEIS Deals in Pipeline:

CardiaTec– Cardiovascular

An AI drug discovery company specialized in cardiovascular disease (CVD), first focusing on coronary artery disease (CAD).

Cardiff Spin-out – Neurosciences

Early discussions regarding a formulation platform Start-Up opportunity from Cardiff University.

Five Alaram Bio – Longevity

Seeking to provide part of a match award to a £300K UK Innovate award around wound healing.

Opal Therapeutics – Psychedelic

The company is developing two programmes in the area of neuro-psychiatric space / psychedelic space. Seeking to target known psychedelic target with novel chemistry.

SEIS Fund Closing:

The fund has a closing date of 31 June 2022 and is targeting significant or full deployment by the end of the tax year. We will develop a portfolio of at least 3 companies. The o2h human health SEIS fund has a minimum Subscription of £10,000, which will be invested into seed stage SEIS qualifying companies covering novel drug discovery along with enabling services, tools and AI technologies that can impact human health.

Investing and onboarding into the o2h Ventures funds is straight-forward via the o2h Ventures App and typically takes 5-10mins. If you would like to know more about the fund, please visit – o2h human health SEIS fund or we can also arrange a call and provide further information, just send a short note to invest@o2h.com and we will schedule a call accordingly.

Disclaimer:
Please refer to the relevant fund’s full risk warnings contained in their Information Memorandums. Your capital is at risk. Investing in early-stage businesses involves risks, including illiquidity, lack of dividends, loss of investment and dilution, and it should be done only as part of a diversified portfolio. o2h Ventures’ funds are targeted exclusively at sophisticated or high net worth investors who understand these risks and make their own investment decisions. *Tax relief depends on an individual’s circumstances and may change in the future. In addition, the availability of tax relief depends on the company invested in maintaining its qualifying status. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. You should not rely on any past performance as a guarantee of future investment performance.

o2h Ventures Ltd is a limited company registered in England and Wales under number 11397838 and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 812245). The registered office and principal place of business is Hauxton House, Mill Scitech Park, Mill Lane, Hauxton, Cambridge, CB22 5HX, United Kingdom. Further details about o2h can be found on our website at https://o2hventures.com.