Press release

RevolKa Ltd. Announces the Closing of a 250 Million JPY (US$1.7 Million) Series A Extension Funding to Accelerate Drug-Discovery Programs

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RevolKa Ltd. (RevolKa), a venture-backed biotech company providing a cutting-edge AI-driven protein engineering technology platform, called aiProtein® announced the closing of a 100 million JPY (US$0.7M) financing, and has completed a total of 250 million JPY (US$1.7M) in the Series A extension funding. We also announced the launch of a drug discovery program for rare diseases on July 30th, 2024. (https://www.revolka.com/news/english/collab-en/a65) Some of our drug candidates in this program have achieved positive in vitro proof-of-concept. D3 LLC (Tomoya Nagata, Managing Partner, CEO) co-led the Series A extension round along with DEEPCORE Inc. (Katsumasa Niki, President & CEO). The funds will accelerate RevolKa’s drug discovery and development activities.

Our core technology, aiProtein®: a robust directed protein evolution technology integrated with AI (artificial intelligence) creates incredibly high performance proteins, going beyond natural evolution. This technology generated many successful stories in collaboration with partner companies.

About D3 LLC

D3.LLC, founded in 2017, is a healthcare-focused investment, business, and consulting company. Our mission is to contribute to global healthcare. We go beyond funding promising scientific and technological seeds and business ideas (Discovery), working alongside entrepreneurs to create meaningful products and services and build business models to deliver them to market (Development). We aim for the social implementation of science, technology, and ideas (Deployment). In venture-capital activities, we value investing in a selected company and providing hands-on support to them in accordance with global standards in the biotech and healthcare VC.

About DEEPCORE Inc.

DEEPCORE Inc. is a venture capital focused on companies in the fields of AI and advanced technologies, supporting entrepreneurs who have the vision to change the world through technology. We invest in pre-seed to early-stage startups in a wide range of industries and sectors, including healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics. In addition to investment activities, we also focus on supporting entrepreneurs. For instance, we are operating “KERNEL”, a community of AI engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs, and “KERNEL Global Startup Camp”, an accelerator program focused on early-stage startups looking to expand their business overseas.

About aiProtein® Technology

RevolKa’s proprietary technology, aiProtein® is an AI-assisted directed evolution of proteins. Naturally occurring protein is a linear polymer of amino acids and their derivatives, which folds into a tertial structure through internal complex atomic interactions to show biological function. Proteins have evolved into biologically functional molecules over hundreds of millions of years. The relationship between protein sequence, structure, and function in those highly complex molecules remains poorly understood to rationally design a protein sequence for a particular function. Our AI engine is trained with sequence-function relationship data to statistically predict sequences for an evolved protein function. Furthermore, aiProtein® can evolve more than two functions simultaneously. This technology is a powerful and cost-effective tool for the creation of novel and highly functional proteins for pharmaceutical and industrial uses.

About RevolKa Ltd.

RevolKa is a venture-backed biotechnology company founded in April 2021 by academic and industry experts in biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Our mission is to create novel proteins useful for therapeutics and industries by using our own proprietary technology, aiProtein® to contribute to human well-being. The name “RevolKa” is derived from the Latin word for evolution, “evolutio” and the Ainu (an indigenous Japanese people) word for raise, “reska”. RevolKa’s headquarters are located in Tokyo, Japan with laboratories located in Sendai. The company’s investors include Tohoku University Venture Partners Co., Ltd. and SBI Investment Co., Ltd., and newly joined D3 LLC and DEEPCORE Inc. For more information, visit https://www.revolka.com/en/.