Less than a month after winning The University of Chicago's New Venture Challenge, Alnair Therapeutics is trying not to overindulge.
The UChicago spinout closed an oversubscribed $1 million-plus pre-seed round with participation from Chicago venture capital firms including Portal Innovations, OCA Ventures and CJM Ventures.
Ryan Meyers, Alnair's chief business officer, said that more than anything, winning first place at one of the top-ranked accelerator programs in the nation gave the market confidence in the company.
"We were able to be somewhat selective with our investors, setting round minimums and turning away some checks because of what we needed," he told Chicago Inno. "Investors get FOMO [fear of missing out] to a degree, and because of the New Venture Challenge, we had a lot of momentum and a lot of exposure and we were able to get investors to move fast."
Launched in September 2022, Alnair aims to develop technology to improve delivery of drugs to difficult-to-treat cancers that it built at the University of Chicago Ben May Department for Cancer Research.
The preclinical stage precision oncology company was named the top startup at the 27th annual University of Chicago New Venture Challenge earlier this month, receiving an initial investment of $585,000 to develop its platform that leverages cancer metabolism to better target and penetrate cancer cells. The startup was also awarded $175,000 from the George Schultz Innovation Fund to begin the year.
"It can be hard to even get in the door with VCs these days, but UChicago unlocks a lot of that for us," Meyers said.
Meyers said Alnair will be using the funding to "de-risk their manufacturing" over the next six months.
"The money is going directly towards accelerating our platform towards the clinic so that we can get this to patients as fast as possible," he said.
