Concinnity secures £3M Seed funding to advance AI-driven gene therapy safety

Edinburgh biotech company Concinnity has raised £3 million Seed funding. 

Co-founded by Jessica Birt and Dr Matthew Dale, Concinnity is a spinout from the University of Edinburgh that is transforming the safety of gene therapies by designing novel control mechanisms using its cutting-edge AI platform and synthetic biology expertise. 

The company’s RNA-based systems enable the precise control of gene therapies even after dosing, meaning they can respond to and reduce their own side effects. 

Eos Advisory led the investment with support from Scottish Enterprise, Old College Capital (OCC) - the University of Edinburgh’s in-house venture investment fund, and Maven Capital Partners.

Andrew McNeill, Managing Partner at Eos, shared: 

“Concinnity is a perfect fit for Eos’s focus on backing pioneering Scottish science, addressing a significant unmet need in gene therapy.

The Concinnity technology has been described as the ‘holy grail for emerging gene therapies’, making such treatments both more effective and safer.”

For the past two years, Concinnity has been supported by Scottish Enterprise as part of its High Growth Spinout Programme. This funding has enabled the team to develop its technology, generating data for commercial validation that has supported the successful completion of this seed investment.

According to Dr Andrea Taylor, CEO of Edinburgh Innovations, the University of Edinburgh’s commercialisation service: 

“Sophisticated gene control systems have the potential to revolutionise advanced therapeutics, enabling new kinds of treatments that will impact future health. 

This funding will enable Concinnity to spin out from the UKRI UK Centre for Mammalian Synthetic Biology at the University of Edinburgh.

 Concinnity will initiate three new programmes developing control systems targeted at key applications within the cell and gene therapy market, as well as continuing to develop existing control systems to obtain critical data to initiate partnerships with customers.

Lead image: Concinnity. Photo: uncredited.