Fresh off a $62.8 million round of funding, Seattle-based life sciences investment company Accelerator Corp. is backing two new biotech startups.
Earlier this month, Accelerator Corp. announced a $48 million investment in Petra Pharma, a New York-based company that develops new drugs to treat cancer and metabolic diseases. Luke Timmerman has more details at Forbes, noting that Petra Pharma is Accelerator Corp.’s first backed startup in New York, where the investment company opened an office in 2014.
Accelerator Corp. also led a $17 million round in Lodo Therapeutics, which included participation from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Lodo Therapeutics, which is developing new, genetically-encoded small molecules from microbial sources, is also based in New York.
Accelerator Corp. launched in Seattle back in 2003 and has raised more than $100 million to invest in life sciences companies. As part of the most recent $62.8 million funding round, the organization plans to fund a yet-to-be-named Seattle company, in addition to the two New York-based startups.
The new investments are Accelerator’s first since early 2011. The company has backed Oncofactor, Groove Biopharma and Theraclone Sciences, among others, with one portfolio company sale since its founding — the cancer-fighting XORI antibody platform.
