Avenue Biosciences, a protein engineering technology company, announced a $5.7 million seed extension funding round co-led by Balnord and Tesi, with participation from Voima Ventures, Inventure, University of Helsinki, and Dimerent. The funding will support scaling a high-throughput platform that measures and modulates the protein secretory pathway, a key bottleneck in therapeutic protein manufacturing.
This technology leverages thousands of natural and engineered signal peptides to evaluate the efficiency of protein biogenesis in the secretory pathway, responsible for folding, modifying, and secreting therapeutic proteins. “The secretory pathway is one of the remaining black boxes in therapeutic protein production. Despite its importance, the current industry standard relies heavily on a decades-old playbook, testing only a small set of safe signal peptides rather than exploring thousands of sequence variants. Our technology makes the increasingly complex proteins, such as AI-designed proteins or multispecifics, more manufacturable, improving access to lifesaving therapies,” said Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and co-founder.
Signal peptides, critical at the cellular level, impact protein production and quality and represent an untapped opportunity. “Novel protein-based biologics under development, for example in cancer, rare diseases or immunology, are becoming increasingly targeted and effective, performing several functions with one therapeutic component: Bring immune cells to the right place, activate them, and recognize disease cells more specifically. However, this adds complexity to the protein structure, adding manufacturing cost, or in the worst case, preventing the development completely,” noted Katja Rosti, COO, co-founder, and Helsinki lab site lead.
Since signal peptides are removed from mature proteins, the approach is also valuable for manufacturing biosimilars, offering lower-cost alternatives to existing therapies. Avenue Biosciences’ platform generates unique datasets linking specific signal peptides to protein targets. “Avenue’s technology taps into some of the largest opportunities in biotech right now: it significantly lowers the costs of biologics and transforms therapeutic protein manufacturing with the use of AI. Their combination of wet lab and machine learning enables the development of high-quality prediction tools for therapeutic developers, targeting the biggest bottlenecks in the industry. The team has shown incredible execution, with really strong industry names as their clients,” said Gabriele Poteliunaite, Investor at Balnord.
“Many life-altering therapeutic innovations remain out of reach for most of the global population. We see significant growth opportunities for Avenue’s technology, which is deeply rooted in Finnish scientific discovery, and has the potential to become a gold standard in its field,” added Miia Kaye, Investment Director at Tesi. Total funding raised by Avenue Biosciences since 2024 now reaches $8.7 million. The technology stems from extensive research at the University of Helsinki and the Ville Paavilainen laboratory.