FUNDING
Durham spinout raises €1.5 million to screen drugs inside living organisms
Magnitude Biosciences, a contract research organisation spun out of Durham University and founded in 2018, secured €1.5 million (£1.3 million) to commercialise VivoScan, its in vivo high-throughput screening platform. Northstar Ventures led through three funds, with Maven's regional funds and new angel investors joining, and the round unlocked a further €253,000 (£217,000) Innovate UK Investor Partnership grant.
CEO Dr. Fozia Saleem framed the capital against a specific end point: becoming the first company able to screen millions of compounds in a whole organism, using C. elegans worms with automated imaging, robotics and AI. The money answers that stated ambition rather than market noise, in a year when EU-Startups counted around €21.6 million across seven adjacent European preclinical platform financings.
Source: EU-Startups · September 15, 2026