LONDON – Newco Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has closed a £7 million (US$9.4 million) extension of its seed round, providing the means to progress its lead small-molecule program in Huntington’s disease through lead optimization. The extended round, from the Novartis Venture Fund and the U.K. government-backed Dementia Discovery Fund, follows an initial seed investment of £4.5 million by DDF in 2019, that was not made public at the time.

X-trodes Ltd. has raised $4.5 million to develop its portfolio of wearable smart technologies that measure and analyze electrophysiological signals. Tel Aviv-based X-trodes is developing two products – a wireless system “Smart Skin” for sleep monitoring and a wearable system to prevent muscle injuries and accelerate recovery. The core technology is based on an intellectual property (IP) developed in the nanotechnology laboratory of Tel Aviv University.

TORONTO – Zilia Inc. has raised C$4 million (US$3.16 million) in seed financing to push new ocular diagnostic technology to regulatory finish lines in the U.S., Canada and eventually Europe. Zilia co-founder and CEO Patrick Sauvageau said the Zilia Ocular is alone in measuring oxygen saturation in the eye, an important biomarker for eye diseases such as glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

PERTH, Australia – Cardiovascular medical device company Venstramedical Ltd. has raised $2 million in seed funding to support development of a small catheter-inserted collapsible heart pump. The Sydney-based company is aiming to develop devices that provide cardiac support for failing hearts without the use of surgery, Venstramedical co-founder and CEO Martin Cook told BioWorld.

TORONTO – Fluid Biotech Inc. has raised $4.7 million in oversubscribed seed funding to further develop and commercialize the world's first hybrid polymer-metal flow-diverting brain stent for curing brain aneurysms that can lead to stroke. Following successful preclinical studies of the stent, attention now turns to applying this fresh capital to hiring contract manufacturers to prepare for first-in-human implantation and production of the mostly polymer-constructed stent.

PARIS – Biospectal SA has just closed a $4.3 million seed round to scale its Optibp smartphone blood pressure monitoring application and data platform technology worldwide.

DUBLIN – Ochre Bio Ltd. has raised $9.6 million in seed financing to drug the liver like never before, by combining genetics, single-cell genomics, spatial sequencing, imaging and machine learning to build a high-resolution, in silico model of the organ, which can provide new insights into disease biology and open up new drug targets.