OCCIDENT – the Entrepreneural Venture Capital Investor

08/2021 About

WE SHAPE OUR TOMORROW

OCCIDENT invests not only in innovations, but also in talents. For 7 years now, we have been supporting CO-OPERAID’s Talents project, a scholarship program for young people from very poor families in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Laos. We are proud that with our support so far 54 students have gained access to higher education; already 15 of them have successfully completed it and are improving our tomorrow in a sustainable way as doctors, lawyers or kindergarten teachers.

We look forward to supporting more talents in the future and giving them the opportunity for an education.

More about the Talents project

07/2021 Portfolio

INVESTMENT IN MK2 BIOTECHNOLOGIES

OCCIDENT invests in industrial biotech for the first time and participates as lead investor in Munich-based startup mk2 Biotechnologies, which focuses on the development and production of peptides. With the multi-million seed funding, the company accelerates its further growth and aims for additional development milestones towards industrializing its new peptide production platform. This revolutionary, scalable synthesis technology platform enables the production of authentic peptides, regardless of their physical or chemical properties, at large scale and low cost.

More information can be found in the press release under the following link.

More about mk2 Biotechnologies

06/2021 Portfolio

INSPHERO FORMS CONSORTIUM WITH LEADING PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES

Our portfolio company InSphero has formed a pre-competitive consortium with Pfizer, Sanofi, Merck and Genentech to better investigate potential negative side effects of new drugs on the liver at an early stage. Drug-induced liver damage is often the reason why the development of a new drug is discontinued.

The safety of new drugs is typically assessed in animal studies prior to the start of a clinical trial, which are not always reliable and should be reduced if possible. The consortium therefore aims to perform these studies on 3D micro tissues from animals and humans to provide a validated in vitro liver model and improve the ability to predict the risk of drug-indiced liver injury from new drug candidates.

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06/2021 Portfolio

SUCCESSFUL PRODUKT DEVELOPMENT AT IOP

Congratulations to our portfolio company Implandata Opthalmic Products (IOP) on two great achievements. Within a few weeks, the company announced that it had received both the European CE Mark certification and the American FDA Breakthrough Devices Designation for its EYEMATE system.

The innovative EYEMATE implant allows continuous monitoring of intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients and thus represents an important component for the optimal and efficient treatment of glaucoma in the future.

More about CE Mark

More about FDA Breakthrough Devices Designation

06/2021 Portfolio

RESISTELL STARTS PERFORMANCE EVALUATION STUDY

Starting the Performance Evaluation Study in June 2021, our portfolio company Resistell has reached a major milestone in the development of its phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility test based on the nanomotion technology. The study is being conducted at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV).

Since our initial investment in 2018, the company has always kept track of its goals to develop the world’s fastest antibiotic susceptibility test. We are now more than enthusiastic to see this technology being brought a major step closer to the commercial use.

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05/2021 Portfolio

ITHERA MEDICAL RECIEVES CE CERTIFICATION

Congratulations to our portfolio company iThera Medical. The company announced that it has received CE mark for its MSOT Acuity Echo. This device combines optoacoustic with ultrasound tomography and features a real-time tomographic ultrasound image. The co-registration of these two imaging modes gives clinicians the opportunity to identify relevant anatomical structures based on the ultrasound image and then probe the tissue of interest for functional and molecular biomarkers using MSOT.

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05/2021 Portfolio

INSPHERO INITIATES TWO NEW COLLABORATIONS

For our portfolio company InSphero from Schlieren, May is an eventful month. Within a few days, InSphero managed to land two promising collaborations.

InSphero was awarded a grant for a joint research project with Dr. Wytske van Weerden’s team at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. The goal of the collaboration is to develop reliable, physiologically relevant in vitro models to study metastatic cells.
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In addition, InSphero announced a collaboration with Hamilton, a global leader in automated workstations and laboratory automation technology. The goal of this collaboration is to improve the production and handling of 3D microtissues.
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02/2021 Portfolio

INVESTING ON THE EDGE OF SCIENCE

As a deep tech investor, we believe in science, its innovative power and its potential to sustainably improve the quality of tomorrow’s life. That is why the majority of our portfolio consists of successful spin-offs from universities and research institutions, which provide the basis for successful companies by researching groundbreaking innovations.

We are now particularly proud that all of our new investments in 2020 have made it onto the Forbes list of the “30 Spin-offs to Watch 2021” in the DACH region. This shows once again that OCCIDENT anticipates the potential for success early on and makes the right investment decisions.

Congratulations also to the great founding teams of hemotune, Tubulis and Code Intelligence!

More about (only in German language)

02/2021 Portfolio

ADIVO CONCLUDES FURTHER GLOBAL COLLABORATION AGREEMENT

Our portfolio company adivo has succeeded in entering into another partnership with one of the leading animal health companies to develop therapeutic antibodies for companion animals. Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, the animal health company will gain access to adivo’s species-specific monoclonal antibody technology.

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