Sixfold Bioscience (Sixfold), a company harnessing computation and advanced chemistry to design RNA therapeutic delivery systems, today announced it has raised a total of $10.5 million USD (£7.8 million GBP) in its seed funding round. The funding will support the continued development of the Company’s Mergo® RNA therapeutics delivery platform.

This most recent second close of the seed financing raised $2.2 million USD, bringing the total dilutive and non-dilutive capital raised to $10.5 million USD. Investors in the seed round included Cantos Ventures, Y Combinator, Lombard Street Ventures and Pi Campus, as well as select Angel investors. The Company received further non-dilutive funding from Innovate UK, MedCity, and the European Commission, where the team leads a series of collaborations on RNA therapeutics.

Founded in 2017 by Dr George Foot and Dr Anna Perdrix Rosell, Sixfold develops programmable drug delivery systems, with a current focus on short interfering RNA for gene silencing and messenger RNA for gene expression. Although rapidly expanding within the last couple of years, the RNA therapeutics field is still largely constrained to targeting the liver or local administration. Sixfold’s Mergo platform offers the exciting possibility to expand this promising therapeutic approach to other organs, across several therapeutic indications.

Mergo consists of the RNA therapeutic and biocompatible building blocks that modulate the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of the system to target selected cell types. The building-blocks that form Mergo are computationally screened, assembled using high-throughput chemistry, and then tested, with each iteration feeding into the next. In essence, the Mergo system rapidly learns which is the best combination for delivery to a given tissue.

Dr George Foot, Founder & co-CEO, Sixfold Bioscience, said: “We’re grateful for the continued support from our investors, as well as welcoming new investors to Sixfold in the second close. This substantial seed financing is testament to the incredible progress the R&D team has made on the Mergo® system to date, and will crucially enable us to expand our platform across several therapeutic indications.”

Ian Rountree, Founder & General Partner at Cantos Ventures, said: “The global pandemic has catapulted RNA therapeutics into the mainstream, yet the field is constrained to targeting the liver. Sixfold's iterative platform technology and use of machine learning will unlock the power of mRNA and RNAi for many diseases across various tissue types. We are delighted to support the Company in this seed round and look forward to their rapid progress over the coming years.”

Images:

1. Sixfold team
2. Dr. George Foot, Founder & co-CEO, Sixfold Bioscience
3. Sixfold founders Dr Perdrix Rosell and Dr George Foot
4. Ian Rountree, Founder & General Partner, Cantos Ventures

For high resolution images please contact Zyme Communications

Media contact:

Katie Odgaard

Zyme Communications

E: katie.odgaard@zymecommunications.com

T: +44 (0)7787 502 947

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Sixfold Bioscience is a venture-backed preclinical-stage biotechnology company, founded in 2017, based at the Translation & Innovation Hub in White City, London. Sixfold develops programmable drug delivery systems, with a current focus on short interfering RNA for gene silencing and messenger RNA for gene expression.

Sixfold’s RNA delivery platform, Mergo®, was conceived by co-founders Dr Perdrix Rosell and Dr George Foot, who were left frustrated by current delivery systems that were either too toxic or faced complex engineering challenges. The Company’s differentiated approach is based on engineering biocompatible nano-architectures with precise chemical profiles that guide the RNA to selected organs.