Bicycle’s founding venture capitalist (VC), Atlas Ventures joined forces this month with SV Life Sciences and three corporate VCs – Novartis (NVS) Venture Fund, GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) SR One and Astellas Venture Management to invest $32m (€25m) in the Cambridge-based biotech company.
Bicycle Therapeutics was established in 2009 as a spin-off of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge), based on the work of the scientific founders Sir Gregory Winter and Professor Christian Heinis from Trinity College, Cambridge. Winter, a renowned scientist in the biotech industry, also founded Domantis and Cambridge Antibody Technology. Founded in the 80s, Cambridge Antibody Technology was a pioneer in British biotechnology, and was listed on the UK stock exchange in 1997, raising £43m. In 2006, AstraZeneca bought the company.