French biotech SeaBeLife raises €2M to treat liver and eye diseases

French biotech company SeaBeLife has secured €2 million in a pre-Series A funding round to advance its drug development pipeline, with clinical trials expected to begin in 2026.

The financing, led by existing investor iXLife and joined by new backers such as INEXT and Femmes Business Angels, will support two core therapeutic programmes targeting dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and severe acute hepatitis.

Founded in 2019, SeaBeLife is developing first-in-class small molecules designed to inhibit both necroptosis and ferroptosis, two regulated cell death pathways implicated in tissue damage associated with rare, acute and chronic diseases. This dual-target approach is currently not available on the market and is seen as a potentially transformative strategy in organ protection.

“The renewed backing from our longstanding investors, together with the addition of new partners, is a clear signal of confidence in our vision and development strategy, and I am extremely grateful for their support,” said Morgane Rousselot, PhD, CEO and co-founder of SeaBeLife.

“This fundraising is a decisive step towards clinical trials and reinforces our ambition to create a new generation of cutting-edge treatments capable of blocking two major pathways for programmed cell death. We are now actively preparing for a Series A funding round to sustain this momentum.”

SeaBeLife's lead candidates include SBL03, for dry AMD, and SBL01, for severe acute hepatitis. Both target therapeutic areas with significant unmet need and limited treatment options. The company recently reported positive in vivo efficacy data for SBL03 in geographic atrophy, a severe and advanced form of dry AMD.

Alongside iXLife and INEXT, returning investors in the round included Breizh Angels, WeLikeStartup, Angels Santé, and Business Angels des Grandes Ecoles. Femmes Business Angels, a pan-European women-led investment group, also participated, with Marie-Pierre Sbardella joining SeaBeLife’s Strategic Committee as part of the agreement.

SeaBeLife has now raised €9 million in total through equity and public funding, including support from Bpifrance, SATT Ouest Valorisation, Biotech Santé Bretagne, and the Région Bretagne. The company was also a winner of the i-Nov Competition 2024, a French national innovation grant aimed at accelerating high-potential startups.

While still in the preclinical stage, SeaBeLife’s dual-pathway inhibition strategy reflects a growing interest in multi-target approaches in drug development, particularly in indications with complex pathological mechanisms. If successful, its therapies could unlock new options for conditions currently underserved by the pharmaceutical market, which in the case of dry AMD and hepatitis includes patient populations in the millions and multi-billion-euro potential markets.

SeaBeLife is now preparing for a larger Series A round to fund clinical studies and scale up development of its pipeline. The company remains headquartered in Roscoff and is led by a scientific founding team with backgrounds in cellular biology, toxicology and pharmacology.