Drug-discovery startup Engine raises $10m in record-breaking seed round

Engine team members, from left to right: Co-founders Jeffrey Lu and Daphne Teo, lead biological scientist Asha Shekaran, research officer Sadiduddin Edbe Selamat, and senior research officer Yogavalli Poobalan / Photo credit: Engine BioSciences

US-Singaporean drug-discovery platform Engine BioSciences has raised US$10 million in funding, in one of the largest seed rounds on record in Southeast Asia.

Silicon Valley-based Danhua Capital and Chinese firm 6 Dimensions Capital co-led the round. Temasek subsidiary Pavilion Capital and EDBI, the investment arm of Singapore’s Economic Development Board, also participated, alongside Baidu Ventures, WI Harper, Nest.Bio Ventures, and WuXi AppTec.

Engine said it will use the funds to continue developing its drug-discovery platform, expand its scientific and executive teams in Singapore and San Francisco, and carry out preclinical studies.

The startup deploys a combination of biological research and artificial intelligence to discover and develop better therapies for key diseases. It was founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Jeffrey Lu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) associate professor Timothy Lu, and Singaporean investor Daphne Teo, along with assistant professors Hu Li from the Mayo Clinic and Prashant Mali from the University of California, San Diego.

Mega-seeds

Engine’s latest fundraise is the largest amount of seed funding raised by a life sciences startup in the region, and is also among the largest seed rounds closed in any industry in Southeast Asia, according to Tech in Asia data.

It falls just short of the US$12.5 million raised by Marvelstone Tech, a fintech spinout of investment firm Marvelstone Group, in February 2016, as well as US$12 million raised by Alpha Fintech in April 2013.

However, both these rounds were raised from angel investors. Tech in Asia data suggests that Engine’s US$10 million raise is the biggest seed amount ever secured from institutional investors in Southeast Asia.

Zeroing in on the life sciences industry, it’s the biggest biotech seed round raised in the region yet, based on Tech in Asia data – and one of the biggest healthcare and life sciences-related fundraising rounds across all funding stages.

Whether this is a sign that more large-scale fundings are on the way for Southeast Asia’s sparse biotech startups remains to be seen.

Tech in Asia has recorded a relatively paltry US$399 million in total venture funding for Southeast Asian biotech and medical device startups since 2012. Almost a quarter of that – US$98.9 million – was raised last year.

That might suggest an upward trend in funding for life sciences and medical technology, though US$80 million of that figure is accounted for by one Temasek-led investment in cancer treatment firm Tessa Therapeutics.

Tech in Asia will update this report with any additional detail and comment.