NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Syntekabio, a
bioinformatics startup from South Korea, said today that it has closed a ₩12
billion ($11.2 million) Series B round of venture capital. Smilegate Investment
led the round, with participation from the Korea Development Bank, Korea
Fixed-Income Investment Advisory, The Yozma Group Korea, and previous investor
Altos Ventures.
Sytekabio has developed a genomic data
analysis platform and an artificial intelligence-driven system for drug
discovery, both built on a high-performance computing backbone. The company is
getting ready to introduce a genome analysis service on the Naver Business
Platform, a major Korean cloud host.
With the new funding, Syntekabio plans on
consolidating three offices into a single headquarters in Seoul while keeping
its main R&D facility in the technology hub of Daejon, South Korea. The
money also will assist with a planned international expansion.
"Our platforms have already been
adopted into the discovery workflow of top pharmaceutical firms in Korea and
[the] next step in our progress is to validate with an established global
pharmaceutical firm and to deploy our solutions to international markets,"
CEO Tyson Kim said in a statement.
Syntekabio previously had a $5.6 million
Series A round in 2016 and has raised upwards of $19 million in total,
according to the company.
