Copenhagen's BioInnovation Institute Backs Six Startups With €7.8M to Push Past the Lab Bench

BioInnovation Institute has awarded additional convertible loans of 1.3 million euros each to six of its portfolio companies, bringing the total capital each has received from the Copenhagen based institute to 1.8 million euros, as the companies move from early research toward commercialisation.

The six recipients, PanTarg, 3Sonic, Inia Biosciences, Yngvi Bio, Proxi Biotech, and Sagava, had each previously secured 500,000 euros from BII. Trine Bartholdy, Chief Business Officer at BII, framed the new funding as recognition of progress each company has already made. "The six companies have demonstrated strong potential and have already taken important steps from promising research to developing solutions that can make a real difference," Bartholdy said. "With continued funding, they have the opportunity to accelerate their development and focus even more on their path towards the market."

The six companies span a notably wide range of scientific and industrial problems. PanTarg, a spin‑out from the University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet, is developing an antibody‑based cancer therapy that combines two targeted attacks in a single treatment, aimed at aggressive cancers including pancreatic cancer. 3Sonic, spun out of Rigshospitalet and the Technical University of Denmark, or DTU, is building a 3D ultrasound and AI imaging tool designed to help surgeons assess cancer tissue in real time during operations, rather than waiting for post‑operative pathology results. Inia Biosciences, which grew out of innovation hubs in Boston and Oxford, is developing treatments for inflammatory diseases, beginning with psoriasis.

Yngvi Bio, a University of Copenhagen spin‑out, is developing biological pest control solutions intended to protect crops while limiting harm to biodiversity and human health, an alternative to synthetic pesticides that have drawn increasing regulatory and environmental scrutiny across Europe. Proxi Biotech, a spin‑out from Statens Serum Institut, is developing a vaccine‑based immunotherapy to treat recurrent bacterial infections, with its lead candidate targeting recurrent Clostridium difficile infections, which can become chronic and are notoriously difficult to treat, positioning the therapy as a potential alternative to treatments such as faecal microbiota transplantation. Sagava, a DTU spin‑out, is converting waste into sustainable biofuels and energy aimed at helping decarbonise the maritime shipping sector.

Bartholdy described the current stage of these companies' development as a point where the right combination of support can make an outsized difference. "It is precisely at this stage that the combination of capital, strong expertise and the right network can make a decisive difference," she said. "We see significant potential in all six companies, and our role is to help them turn their technologies into sustainable businesses and products that can create value for patients, society and investors."

Founded in 2018, BII is a Danish innovation institute that supports translational research projects and startups across life sciences and deep tech through what it describes as an integrated innovation platform, combining expertise, networks, laboratory infrastructure, business development support, and financing to help researchers and entrepreneurs turn early‑stage research into companies with real commercial potential. Since its inception, BII has backed more than 140 startups, and its alumni have collectively gone on to raise more than 1 billion euros in external capital, a track record that has made BII one of the more established and closely watched translational research institutes in European life sciences.

The organisation's ambitions have continued to scale alongside that track record. In February 2026, BII secured 25 million euros in funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation to launch Upscalator, a new initiative designed to support Danish and European early‑stage startups with the facilities, services, and expertise needed to bring novel biosolutions to market and support the broader green transition. That commitment sits within a considerably larger, longer‑term expansion at BII: the Novo Nordisk Foundation has separately committed up to 5.5 billion Danish kroner, roughly 736 million euros, to scale the institute through 2035, with an explicit mandate to convert more European research into commercially viable companies and technologies.

Alongside the fresh capital, each of the six companies retains access to BII's Copenhagen based innovation platform, including laboratory facilities and a network of investors, advisors, and strategic partners, along with continued support in business development and commercialisation strategy. With the new funding, BII said the six companies are now better positioned to advance their technologies, attract further external investment, and move closer to bringing their products to market, a progression that will likely determine which of the six proves most successful at converting this latest tranche of institutional support into the kind of independent, investor‑backed growth that has defined BII's most prominent alumni to date.