Bangalore-based Biopharma Startup Bugworks Raises $7.5 Mn from Japan-based VCs and Acquipharma Holdings

Bugworks Research Inc, a global biopharma start-up designing novel broad-spectrum antibiotics, announced the completion of a $7.5M financing, led by University of Tokyo Edge Capital (UTEC) Japan and Global Brain Corporation (Global Brain) Japan, along with Acquipharma Holdings, South-Africa. The company has raised $19M till date and has 3one4 Capital as an existing investor.

This investment enables Bugworks to complete Phase 1 studies for its GYROX series Intravenous drug candidate and advance an Oral lead towards clinical development. Bugworks' drug candidate, a dual-target gyrase-topoisomerase inhibitor, supported by CARB-X since 2017, is a novel broad-spectrum agent targeting critical bacterial infections implicated in serious hospital, community and biothreat indications.

"UTEC led the Bugworks Series A in 2018, as we identified Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as one of the global issues of mankind, and facilitated Bugworks' collaboration with Japanese ecosystem. Bugworks has thoroughly impressed us with their scientific rigour, pre-clinical data, business development progress and commitment to saving lives. We are now proud to double-down our investment in Bugworks," said Tomotaka Goji, Managing Partner & President, UTEC.

"As witnessed with COVID-19, infectious diseases are threatening human existence. AMR is a serious issue and Global Brain regards this as a big unmet medical need. We are proud to partner with Bugworks to bring highly differentiated solutions in AMR to the market. We consider India to be an important region, both from innovation and market perspective and are hence accelerating our investment activity in India," said Yasuhiko Yurimoto, Founder-CEO & General Partner Global Brain.

"This new financing is an endorsement of our team and differentiated AMR assets, as we bring reputed global investors to aid our mission of pandemic preparedness by defeating superbug infections," said Dr. Anand Anandkumar, CEO of Bugworks.

Investors Profile

UTEC is a Tokyo-based early-stage VC with over $500M AUM with 11 successful IPOs and 11 M&As. UTEC invests in seed/early-stage startups that solve global issues of humankind using profound science and technology.

Global Brain is a VC firm based in Tokyo with offices in San Francisco, London, Seoul, Singapore and Jakarta. With over $1.5B assets under management, Global Brain has invested in 200+ startups selectively from seed/early to pre-IPO startups and achieved 17 IPOs and 48 M&As.

Acquipharma Holdings is a South-Africa based life-science boutique investment fund, who've invested in Bugworks since 2016.

www.bugworksresearch.com

Intelligent Retail Platform Vue.ai Raises $17 Mn from Falcon Edge, Sequoia India and Global Brain

Mad Street Den, the maker of Vue.ai, a platform for intelligent retail automation, today announced it has raised a $17 million Series B led by Falcon Edge Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital India and Global Brain, a GP of KDDI Innovation Fund.

The new round brings the company’s total capital raised to $27.5 million. After experiencing a fourfold annual revenue increase, the funds will be used to grow the team, deliver on the product roadmap and scale the company’s existing customer base that already includes leading retailers from across the globe like Macy’s, Mercadolibre and Tata.

Last September, the AI startup had received undisclosed amount in strategic investment from KIDDI Corporation of Tokyo, Japan. The funds have been routed through KIDDI’s investment arm, KDDI Open Innovation Fund 2, managed by Global Brain.

Retailers have entered an era where consumers expect a seamless brand experience thanks to behemoths like Amazon and Alibaba who are using AI to personalize products and services for shoppers. The battle to stay competitive comes at a tremendous cost to retailers who are projected to spend more than $7B billion on AI over the next 3 years. By offering a one-stop shop across the value chain, Vue.ai is the first AI solution to automate critical functions across departments heavily dependent on human intuition, unifying data about products, people and processes.

Vue.ai combines seven different products to offer retailers a unified system used as a ‘neural network’ for decision-making. Using a centralized data brain, the platform digitally maps a retail product’s DNA, then translates product information into language that teams can easily understand. With better accuracy and insights, retailers can easily decode the qualities of their merchandise, make intelligent updates on the fly, and deliver unique experiences along every step of the customer journey.

“The future of retail is entertainment. The experience economy we see today is the start of that era,” said Ashwini Asokan, CEO and Founder of Vue.ai. “Brands are shifting to designing worlds that consumers want to be a part of and that has to integrate with the new ways people shop. Vue is the electricity that powers all these complicated and important retail functions so retailers can focus on the business of entertaining you"

"The Vue.ai team is on a mission to put AI and intelligent automation in the hands of teams across the globe in ways that improve productivity and growth multi-fold,” said Anandamoy Roychowdhary, CTO and Director of Sequoia Capital India. “We’ve seen incredible growth in how they’ve brought this value across multiple functions in the retail industry in just two years since we started this journey with them. Sequoia India is excited to partner with Falcon Edge in this round, enabling Ashwini and Anand to scale Vue.ai globally.”

California-headquartered firm which has an office in Chennai, Vue.ai was launched by husband-wife duo - Ashwini Asokan and Anand Chandrasekaran in 2016 as the first AI brand from its parent company Mad Street Den. The team is comprised of neuroscientists and AI experts from IBM, Intel and DARPA. The company serves major retailers across the US, UK, India, Middle East and Latin America.

The company has recently announced Human Model Generator, an AI that can generate garment-to-model images & predict how the garment fits.