VentureSouth leads investment in Altis Biosystems

VentureSouth announced that it has led the oversubscribed $3.1 million Series Seed investment round for Altis Biosystems, a Chapel Hill, NC-based biotechnology company.

Altis Biosystems makes drug discovery faster, cheaper, and safer, and reduces the need for animal testing. A spinout of the UNC-Chapel Hill Biomedical Engineering Department, Altis is commercializing RepliGut, a next-generation stem cell technology that recreates the human intestinal epithelium to improve compound screening and microbiome research for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. It received multiple state and federal grants to help develop its technology, and now sells RepliGut as a product and by providing contract research services on the platform to many biopharmaceutical companies, including half of the top-20 pharma companies.

With the funding, Altis will welcome new additions to its Board of Directors including industry veterans Joe McMahon, former CEO of KBI Biopharma (sold to JSR Corporation) and kSep®Systems (sold to Sartorius AG), Sue Mahony, former SVP and President of Lilly Oncology, and VentureSouth member Sam Franklin, a nephrologist, experienced investor, and UNC graduate.

VentureSouth invested over $1 million as the first and largest investor in the fundraising. VentureSouth was joined by local investors including RTP Capital and Hatteras Venture Partners, and other syndicate partners across the country including members of the Atlanta Technology Angels in Atlanta and Central Texas Angel Network in Austin. This is VentureSouth’s eighth investment in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill Triangle in the last 12 months, and the 17th company to receive funding from VentureSouth members during 2020.

Michael Biron, Altis’ CEO, commented that, “We are fortunate to have VentureSouth as Altis Biosystems’ lead investor for this round. Professional, collaborative, and resourceful, VentureSouth has been exceptional to work with throughout this process and to have as a partner as we grow our company. We are particularly pleased to have oversubscribed our fundraising target by nearly 50%, despite the challenges of the current global health environment, and are looking forward to deploying this new funding as we accelerate the development and deployment of additional biologically accurate and comprehensive intestinal models with our pharma and biotech partners.”

For more information about Altis Biosystems please visit https://altisbiosystems.com/