German mRNA startup SRTD completes €31.5 million seed round

TechFlow reports that on November 9, SRTD Biotech, an mRNA therapy startup based in Jülich, Germany, announced the completion of a €31.5 million seed round that was oversubscribed. The round was led by Mérieux Equity Partners through its Mérieux Innovation 2 fund, co-led by NRW.BANK and Boehringer Ingelheim Ventures, with participation from Lilly Ventures, the German high-tech founder fund (HTGF), and Freiburg family office Anobis Asset. The company was founded in 2019 by Bernd Hoffmann and Heribert Bohlen. Its technology uses intracellular RNA disease markers to trigger mRNA expression, generating therapeutic payloads only in diseased cells while minimizing impact on healthy tissues; the company calls this approach seRNA. Its platform consists of three components: proprietary seRNA technology, a fusogenic lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery platform capable of reaching organs such as the liver, lungs, and brain, and a synthetic biology platform combining bioinformatics with AI-driven RNA design. Alongside the financing, the company adjusted its management team: Matthias Alder was appointed CEO, having previously served as CEO, COO, and CBO at publicly listed biotech companies in the United States and Europe; Heinz Koeppl, founder of the synthetic biology platform and professor at the Technical University of Darmstadt, was appointed CTO; and Jens Hennecke was appointed CBO, responsible for external R&D collaborations. Alder said the funds will be used to advance founder Hoffmann's vision of bringing safer, more differentiated RNA therapies to patients underserved by existing therapies. NRW.BANK invested through the NRW.Venture EU Tech&Scale fund, which, under an InvestEU guarantee, can provide up to an additional €200 million to growth companies.

Source: TechFlow