Walking Fish Therapeutics Closes $73 Million Series A

<p><strong>SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO<&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; Walking Fish Therapeutics&comma; a leader in B cell therapeutics&comma; has completed an oversubscribed Series A financing&comma; raising a total of &dollar;73 million&period; The additional investment&comma; co-led by Northpond Ventures and First Spark Ventures&comma; with support from Terra Magnum Capital Partners&comma; will be used to advance a pipeline of B cell therapeutics for oncology&comma; rare disease&comma; regenerative medicine&comma; autoimmune disease&comma; and recombinant antibody production&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Walking Fish Therapeutics made its debut in September 2021 with the launch of Series A financing led by Emerson Collective&comma; Illumina Ventures&comma; and Quan Capital&period; Daniel Janse&comma; Ph&period;D&period; from Northpond Ventures and Manish Kothari&comma; Ph&period;D&period; from First Spark Ventures will be joining the board of directors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Dr&period; Williams has an inspiring vision to bring B cell therapies to the forefront of medicine&comma;” said Daniel Janse&comma; Ph&period;D&period;&comma; Director at Northpond Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our financial investment reflects the fund’s broad commitment to identify and empower scientific breakthroughs that will transform healthcare&period; Northpond is united with Walking Fish’s mission and technological approach to engineer and develop new B cell therapies for patients with unmet needs&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since the launch of Series A financing in September&comma; Walking Fish&&num;8217&semi;s platform for protein factories and oncology applications has continued to demonstrate positive preclinical data across multiple indications&period; The additional proceeds will accelerate platform development and further establish Walking Fish as the leader in the rapidly emerging B cell therapeutics field&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our decision to join Walking Fish’s Series A investment pool was an easy one&comma;” said Manish Kothari&comma; Ph&period;D&period;&comma; Partner at First Spark Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Dr&period; Williams’ and his team’s extensive experience in exploring&comma; expanding&comma; and commercializing first-in-class therapies gave us the utmost confidence in our investment&period; We share their fundamentals-driven approach to develop truly breakthrough solutions for patients&comma; and we look forward to our ongoing partnership&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our team at Walking Fish welcomes Northpond Ventures and First Spark Ventures to an already world-class team of investors&comma;” says Co-Founder and CEO&comma; Dr&period; Lewis &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Rusty” Williams&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Recent Walking Fish innovations in B cell engineering and manufacturing have enabled expansion of our pipeline to include new product opportunities&period; We believe strongly in the power of B cell therapeutics in applications spanning oncology to protein deficiency diseases&comma; and we are confident the support of our new investors will enable us to further advance this emerging field of treatments&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;