Transaction Case Studies
Newco venture for novel immune regeneration platform led to twice upsized seed
Situation Assessment
- Locust Walk co-founded NewCo with two scientific founders in the fields of hematology, oncology, immunoengineering, and mechanoregeneration
- The novel technology aims to leverage the body’s inherent regenerative capacity to create therapeutics to restore immunity damaged by toxins, disease, or age
- The scientific co-founders received investor interest and were seeking support to turn ground-breaking research into a company to accelerate its development and raise capital
- Locust Walk’s objective as co-founder was to support the academic founders to help build a company while retaining as much value for the founders as possible
Key Activities
- Worked closely with co-founders to develop a full business plan, including pre-clinical and clinical development strategies, indication prioritization, company organization chart, pre-clinical budget, and use of proceeds plan
- Prepared non-confidential and confidential investor materials, positioning the company story in a way that resonated with investors
- Conducted investor outreach to our network of accredited investors and facilitated management discussions, providing support throughout the due diligence process
- Lead deal dynamics and collaborated with investors and legal team to establish a timeline and drive the financing to close
- Negotiated licensing terms with the technology transfer office at a leading research university to enable company spinout
Successful Outcome
- Locust Walk along with the founders helped incorporate the business, develop a business plan, build a detailed budget and raised a twice upsized seed round of ~$7M
- Funding enables the company to further develop both immune regeneration platforms, supporting preclinical data generation in HSCT complications and proof-of-principle for platform expansion opportunities
- Funding will also support finalizing CMC and regulatory development for IND-enabling studies
