According to SEC filings posted Tuesday afternoon, Evelo Biosciences has raised approximately $47.5 million in new funding. The Cambridge, MA-based company researches and develops therapeutics based around the human microbiome, the ecosystem of flora and fauna that take up residence in the warm, dark confines of our guts, mouths, blood, reproductive systems, and elsewhere.
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It turns out that the bacteria and other microorganisms that live inside us have seemingly profound effects on health and wellness, and researchers are discovering ways to use our microbiota to treat and prevent disease.
According to the company’s website, Evelo Biosciences is exploring applications in oncology (cancer treatment and research), central nervous system issues like anxiety and depression, neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, and metabolic conditions like liver disease and obesity, among other fields.
The company holds several patents, including one for probiotics which inhibit inflammation, and it has partnered with researchers at the University of Chicago to develop, patent, trial, and commercialize a possible way to treat or prevent cancer by manipulating the human microbiome.
Evelo Biosciences was founded in 2014 and has raised at least $85 million to date in two rounds. Investors include GV (Google Ventures, an occasional investor in life sciences startups), Celgene, Mayo Clinic Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investors.
Flagship Pioneering—a venture fund with at least $2.3 billion under management—led Evelo’s Series A and Series B rounds. A life sciences investor told Crunchbase News that Flagship Pioneering has a similar model to a “venture studio” in that they conceive of, create, and fund “first-in-category” startups in the life sciences sector. The founding partner and managing director of Flagship Pioneering, Noubar Afeyan, is on the founding team of sixteen other life sciences ventures according to Crunchbase data.
Comparing the new SEC filing to the older one declaring the company’s $50 million Series B, no new board members or executives are listed. Other notable directors listed on this and previous filings include Theodose Melas-Kyriazi of Spark Capital, David Berry and David Epstein of Flagship Pioneering, David Perry of Indigo (another Flagship-funded company), and Lord Ara Darzi, a British Labour politician and Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London.
Crunchbase News has reached out to Evelo Biosciences seeking comment but did not hear back prior to publication.
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias
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