HTGF portfolio company AYOXXA Biosystems wins new investors to close a € 9,0m Series B round

AYOXXA Biosystems GmbH, an international biotechnology company, completed a € 9,0m Series B financing round by the end of June 2014. All of the company’s existing investors (High-Tech Gründerfonds, KFW, NRW.BANK, Wellington Partners Venture Capital and private investors) took part, along with new investors b-to-v Partners AG, Creathor Venture and HR Ventures. In addition several private investors from the US and Europe, including AYOXXA employees and two of Qiagen’s founders, joined this financial round.

In line with the company’s strategy to commercialize its novel in-situ encoded bead array technology (IEBA), the funding will be used to scale-up the production of AYOXXA’s proprietary biochips as well as to achieve international commercial readiness. To celebrate this milestone, AYOXXA launched a fresh Corporate Identity (CI) seamlessly integrated into its website www.AYOXXA.com. AYOXXA now stands for “Leveraging success in proteomics”. “I am pleased that we were able to close this round in a macro- environment that currently is very challenging, finding funding for young companies has become extremely difficult.”, comments Dr. Andreas Schmidt, CEO of AYOXXA, “Beyond the financial assets, we will benefit from the expanded network in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and enabling technology field. This will facilitate effective commercialization of our IEBA technology in the near future.” he adds.

“AYOXXA adds a new dimension to enabling research technologies. Its IP-protected new detection and evaluation multiplex-platform can be easily integrated into current workflows. I see a very high potential for such a novel approach to protein multiplex testing.” adds Prof. Riesner, one of the Qiagen founders and new AYOXXA investor. In order to complement the co-founders Dr. Andreas Schmidt (CEO) and Prof. Dieter Trau (CSO) AYOXXA attracts experienced leadership for its corporate executive management team and supervisory board:

Dr. Markus Zumbansen, Vice President Research and Development, has more than ten years of experience in the development of platform technologies. Before joining AYOXXA he worked in different R&D positions within the biotech industry, Miltenyi Biotec being his last station.

Michael Rasche, newly appointed Corporate Vice President Global Commercial Operations is now leading all activities in the area of marketing, sales and business development. He has an international background with 23 years of experience in leading Pharma- and Diagnostic-companies.

Rodney Turner, until recently Vice President of Corporate Business Development for Life Technologies Corporation, joins AYOXXA’s supervisory board as of immediately. Mr. Turner graduated with a BA from Rice University. He had a leading role in the acquisitions of AMG Advanced Microscopy Group, BAC The Bioaffinity Company, BioTrove, Stokes Bio, GeneArt AG, Ambion, and several others. His extensive experience in life science tools companies will primarily help to accelerate product introduction into new markets across the research segments.

About AYOXXA
AYOXXA Biosystems GmbH, an international biotech company based in Cologne (Germany) and Singapore, has developed a proprietary technology platform for multiplex protein analysis. Core to the cutting-edge system is a bead-based technology (IEBA) that yields 10,000-fold more data points than a standard 384-well ELISA. Together with lowest sample volume in the multiplex protein arena, an increased assay robustness, and readout with existing equipment, AYOXXA will bring a paradigm shift to biomedical research, pharmacological screening and preclinical diagnostics development.
www.ayoxxa.com

Contact:
Dr. Andreas Schmidt (CEO)
AYOXXA Biosystems GmbH
Nattermannallee 1
50829 Cologne
Phone:     +49 (0) 221 222529 10
info@ayoxxa.com

b-to-v Partners AG
www.b-to-v.com

Creathor Venture
www.creathor.de

HR Ventures
www.hr-ventures.com

KfW Bank
www.kfw.de/kfw.de-2.html

NRW.BANK
www.nrwbank.com/en/index.html

Wellington Partners Venture Capital
www.wellington-partners.com/wp/index.html