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Arctoris Ltd, a fully automated drug discovery platform for virtual and traditional biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical corporations and academia, has announced that it has successfully closed a seed funding round of £3.2 million to advance its novel drug discovery offering.

The funding will be used to further build out the company’s commercial operations and service portfolio, the latter of which enables customers to rapidly and accurately achieve drug discovery milestones from target identification to candidate characterisation, as well as dataset generation for artificial intelligence (AI/ML) model validation and training.

From its beginnings at the University of Oxford in 2016, Arctoris has established the world’s first fully automated, robotic laboratory dedicated to drug discovery, providing global drug discovery teams with on-demand access to a broad range of cellular, molecular and biochemical assays. The company’s automated system delivers high-quality data through standardised, pre-optimised and fully validated processes, while its innovative online portal makes it easy for researchers to plan, order and track their experiments from anywhere in the world.

The funding round was led by RT Partners and included angel investors Patrick Pichette and Vishal Gulati, as well as additional industry-recognised investors and advisors including Charles Songhurst, Alexander Straub, TD Veen AS and Tanarra Capital.

"At RT Partners, we invest in UK-based, IP-rich technology that has the potential to revolutionise the life science industry. Arctoris’s novel platform and compelling vision is perfectly aligned with this objective. The successful completion of this seed funding round will support the company’s clear potential to improve how drug discovery is planned and performed," said Alex Gough, Partner, RT Partners.

Martin-Immanuel Bittner MD DPhil, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Arctoris, commented: "This support from industry-recognised investors and advisors will enable our team to continue to develop our revolutionary approach to drug discovery, which has been specifically designed to produce data of the highest possible quality from a broad range of biochemical, molecular biology and cell biology assays. Through our platform, scientists and biotechnology entrepreneurs worldwide can make discoveries faster and more efficiently, paving the way to introducing new treatments to patients sooner."

"At a practical level, this funding will enable us to further advance our technology, expand our service offering, attract more leading experts to join our thriving team and support the imminent opening of our new, bespoke laboratory facility. It will also allow us to continue to be closely involved in BioTarget, the world’s first biotech competition for emerging companies dedicated to finding new molecules for cancer treatment," said Tom Fleming MChem, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Arctoris.

The success of the latest Arctoris funding round has also seen the company nominated as a "Seed-Stage Finance Raise of the Year" finalist at the 2019 European Lifestars Awards and a "BioSeed One to Watch Award" finalist at the 2019 OBN Awards ceremony.

Learn more about Arctoris

About Arctoris Ltd

Arctoris Ltd is an Oxford-based research company that is revolutionising drug discovery for virtual and traditional biotechnology companies, pharmaceutical corporations and academia. Arctoris has established the world's first fully automated drug discovery platform, offering pre-optimised and fully validated R&D processes for its partners and customers globally. Accessible remotely, the platform provides on-demand access to a wide range of biochemical, cell biology and molecular biology assays conducted by robotics, enabling rapid, informed decision-making in basic biology, target validation, toxicology and phenotypic screening. These assay capabilities are accessed using a powerful online portal that streamlines experiment planning, ordering, tracking and data analysis. Thanks to the Arctoris platform, customers can rapidly, accurately and cost-effectively perform their research and advance their drug discovery programmes.