BioInnovation Institute backs five startups with €1.3M in follow-on funding

BioInnovation Institute (BII), an initiative of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, has awarded an additional €1.3 million in follow-on funding to five portfolio startups, bringing total support per company to up to €1.8 million. The funding is intended to support product development, operational scaling and progress toward market deployment across healthtech, agritech, climatetech and deeptech.

The announcement follows a recent commitment by the Novo Nordisk Foundation of up to €736 million (DKK 5.5 billion) to BII, enabling the Copenhagen-based institute to expand into new strategic areas and geographies while supporting a larger number of entrepreneurs and startups across Europe.

Established in 2018, BII is a non-profit life science incubator that supports early-stage research and startups with funding, facilities and business support to help translate scientific discoveries into viable companies.

The latest funding is being deployed through BII’s Venture House programme as part of its broader mission to translate cutting-edge research into commercially viable solutions with societal impact.

The five supported startups are:

• Synuca Therapeutics - The first company funded through the DKK320 million innovation partnership with Lundbeckfonden/Lundbeck Foundation. It develops a first-in-class disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson’s disease and related brain disorders. 
• Gefjon Pharma - Building an outer membrane vesicle (OMV) platform to produce cost-effective vaccines and therapeutics, initially targeting E. coli infections in poultry to reduce antimicrobial use.
• MicroMiner - Advancing recycling technology to improve the sustainability of EV batteries as it transitions from research to deployable solutions.
• DARERL - Developing a SaaS platform that provides high-fidelity digital human anatomy models to support the design and validation of wearable and medical devices.
• Diasense - Industrialising a quantum diamond microscope to deliver real-time diagnostics and process insights for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.

Commenting on the announcement, Trine Bartholdy, Chief Business Officer at BII, said:

All five companies clearly reflect BII’s mission to enable novel solutions that benefit human health, planetary health and societal resilience. We are proud to continue supporting them through our Venture House program and help bring them closer to external investment and commercialisation.

Each of the five companies had previously received €500,000 from BII and will use the additional funding to advance key milestones, ranging from lead optimisation in neurodegenerative disease research to scaling vaccine production and industrialising quantum diagnostic tools.