Caribou Biosciences Completes Series B Financing Round

Caribou Biosciences announced on May 16, 2016 the completion of a $30-million Series B financing round. According to a press announcement, the financing included the participation of new investors, including Anterra Capital, Heritage Group, Maverick Capital Ventures, and Pontifax AgTech. F-Prime Capital Partners, Novartis, Mission Bay Capital, and 5 Prime Ventures also participated in the round, Caribou wrote.

"The proceeds from this financing will enable us to continue to expand our industry-leading CRISPR gene editing technology platform and accelerate our efforts in highly promising application areas in agriculture, therapeutics, biological research, and industrial biotechnology,” said Rachel Haurwitz, PhD, president and CEO of Caribou, in a press announcement.

Caribou is a developer of cellular engineering and analysis solutions based on CRISPR technologies. The company’s genome editing technology is centered on Cas9, a programmable nuclease, the company wrote on their website. In February 2016, Caribou entered into a non-exclusive license agreement for CRISPR-Cas9 reagents with Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT), a producer of custom synthetic oligonucleotide-based technologies for genomics applications. The company entered into a similar agreement with Novartis in 2015, under which Novartis was granted non-exclusive rights to Caribou’s CRISPR platform for research conducted during the collaboration.

Source: Caribou Biosciences