Finnish biotech Avenue Biosciences raises $5.7M to scale protein engineering technology
Avenue Biosciences, a Finnish protein engineering technology company, has raised $5.7M in seed extension funding round. The round was co-led by Balnord, and Tesi, with support from existing investors Voima Ventures, Inventure, University of Helsinki, and Dimerent, to scale a high-throughput protein engineering technology that accelerates the discovery of protein-based therapies and tools for the biotechnology industry.
About Avenue Biosciences
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Avenue Biosciences is a biotechnology company, founded by Katja Rosti and Tero-Pekka Alastalo with offices in Helsinki and Palo Alto. It focuses on developing protein biologics and tools for the biotechnology industry.
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The company has created a protein engineering platform that integrates biology and machine learning to improve protein production.
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The technology, developed from research conducted at the University of Helsinki, uses a library of signal peptides to study and optimize the efficiency of protein biogenesis in the secretory pathway.
“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,” says Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and co-founder of Avenue Biosciences.
Investment details
The round was co-led by Balnord, and Tesi, with support from existing investors Voima Ventures, Inventure, University of Helsinki, and Dimerent.
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Balnord is a venture fund investing in deep tech and frontier tech startups from Poland and the Baltic Sea region at early and later stages, focusing on supply chain, healthcare, space tech, and dual-use solutions.
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Tesi (officially Finnish Industry Investment Ltd) is a state-owned, market-driven investment company that invests in venture capital and private equity funds and directly in Finnish startups and growth companies, and to new industrial scale businesses.
Avenue Biosciences will use the funding to scale its protein engineering technology and improve the efficiency of therapeutic protein production.
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https://en.ain.ua/2026/01/12/avenue-biosciences-raises-57m/