Altis Biosystems, a company co-founded by BME Associate Professor Scott Magness and former chair Dr. Nancy Allbritton, recently announced completion of a $3.1 million seed investment led by VentureSouth. The company was founded to address the biopharmaceutical industry’s intense need for more accurate drug screening methods using in vitro platforms, which can more closely replicate human biology. Altis has developed a stem cell technology called RepliGut, which produces a layer of human intestinal stem cells of either the small or large intestine to improve compound screening, disease modeling and microbiome research for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
VentureSouth is one of the largest early-stage investment groups in the Southeast and invested over $1 million as the first and largest investor in the fundraising. It was joined by local investors including RTP Capital and Hatteras Ventures, and other syndicate partners across the country including Atlanta Technology Angels and Central Texas Angel Network. With this seed series funding round, Altis will welcome new additions to its Board of Directors. These include Joe McMahon, former CEO of KBI Biopharma and k-Sep® Systems, Sue Mahony, former SVP and President of Lilly Oncology, and Sam Franklin, UNC graduate, nephrologist, and member of VentureSouth.
Michael Biron, CEO of Altis, said, “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 the full announcement, visit Cision website here.