Tech darling Enveda has raised a total of $845 million in the past six years. The latest funding round is intended to pave the way for an IPO someday.
Enveda, which is working on an “exercise in a tablet” oral obesity candidate, has collected $311 million in a series E crossover fundraising round to support the advancement of three medicines into late-stage development.
The AI drug discovery biotech has already shown its mettle in the clinic, with the weight loss maintenance therapy ENV-308 demonstrating tolerability in a Phase 1 trial that readout in August. Another asset, ENV-294, reduced the severity of eczema in an early-stage atopic dermatitis trial, according to results posted in July.
Now, the company has some more cash to play with and public market investors on side, according to a Wednesday morning release. The $311 million round brings the company’s fundraising total to more than $845 million since its inception.
Enveda pledged to use the cash to push ENV-294 and ENV-308 into later-stage development and new indications. New trials are expected to kick off “in the coming months,” the company said.
With two novel molecules having shown their early potential in people, “this financing lets us build the company those results deserve, one that can carry its own medicines from discovery through late-stage development and do it faster and at lower cost than the industry has come to accept,” CEO Viswa Colluru said in a prepared statement.
In total, Enveda has developed 17 candidates to date, with three in human testing already, according to the release. The third is ENV-6946, which is under development for inflammatory bowel disease. The biotech will use the new funds to move that asset through mid-stage clinical development, while also working to advance earlier assets into the clinic for inflammatory and metabolic disorders. Finally, the latest fundraise will help Enveda build up the AI platform called PRISM that created it all.
“We started Enveda on a different premise: the most reliable source of new medicines is the chemistry that living things have been refining for billions of years, and AI finally lets us read it,” Colluru said.
The series E was led by Catalio Capital Management, which has supported early-stage biotechs such as obesity-focused Kailera Therapeutics and fellow AI drug hunter Big Hat Biosciences.
Also participating in the round were healthcare investors T. Rowe Price Investment Management and Surveyor Capital, plus tech-focused Durable Capital Partners, ICONIQ and Lightspeed.
