The companies Borealis Biosciences, Outpace Bio, and Halda Therapeutics bagged the biggest private biotech investments in August 2024. Around the world, oncology players attracted the biggest funding rounds overall, followed by central nervous system (CNS), immunology, rare disease, and renal disease companies.
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Biggest biotech investments by value in August 2024
August 2024 saw Borealis Biosciences bring in the largest investment of the month in a series A round worth $150 million. Borealis was launched on August 23 by Novartis and Versant and the new company will focus on developing next-generation xRNA-based medicines for kidney diseases. Novartis holds the option for the acquisition of two development-ready programs from Borealis.
Outpace Bio bagged the second biggest investment last month after raising $144 million in a series B round that will go towards advancing AI-powered cell therapies into clinical development. Meanwhile, Halda Therapeutics raised the third largest investment, bringing in $126 million in a series B round to advance two RIPTAC (the company’s bifunctional small molecules) candidates into clinical trials for patients with prostate cancer and breast cancer, initially in the metastatic setting where drug resistance to standard of care is prevalent.
Biotech investments by location in August 2024
As we have come to expect, companies in North America once again managed to complete the most funding rounds in August 2024 – with 18 – bringing in a total of $1.068 billion. Meanwhile, European companies brought in $51 million from two funding rounds, and the Asia-Pacific region brought in $10 million from just one round.
Biotech investments by funding type in August 2024
When we look at investments by funding type, we can see that series B and seed rounds were the most popular types of fundraising rounds in August 2024, with six of each round taking place. Series B rounds also brought in the most money overall, with $506 million. However, despite there being six seed rounds, only $48 million in total was raised from these rounds, putting seed rounds at the bottom of the pack in terms of the amount raised.
Month-to-month comparison of biotech investments
Below is a graph showing a month-to-month comparison of private biotech fundraising. We have included the total number of funding rounds, as well as the total amount of money raised per month.
August is generally a quiet month for biotech fundraising, so it might come as no surprise that last month had the fewest funding rounds and the lowest amount raised of the year so far. There were only 21 rounds, from which $1.129 billion was raised. This is even less than what was raised in February, which was the second quietest fundraising month of 2024, in which $1.364 billion was raised.