Biotech firm IMU Bioscience raises £39.4m led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures
This article covers IMU Bioscience, a biotech startup, closing a series A funding round of £39.4m in an oversubscribed financing led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures. The funding will support expansion of IMU's clinical platform and infrastructure as it scales its immune-profiling dataset and advances clinical programmes in transplantation and cancer immunotherapy.
IMU Biosciences, a biotech startup, has closed a series A funding round of £39.4m in an oversubscribed financing led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures. The cash will support expansion of IMU’s clinical platform and infrastructure as the company scales its immune-profiling dataset and advances clinical programmes in transplantation and cancer immunotherapy.
Why it matters
IMU is pitching itself as a provider of high-resolution immune system data at clinical scale. The company says it has grown the world’s largest immune dataset to more than 25,000 individuals in 2026 and aims to create a universal standard for immune profiling. That kind of structured, large-scale immune data could be useful for drug developers, hospital labs and researchers seeking biomarkers to predict treatment response or monitor disease progression.
To date IMU has raised about £44.6m. The new proceeds are earmarked for operational expansion, platform development and specific clinical programmes including stem cell and solid organ transplantation, and MANIFEST, a UK research consortium studying patient responses to cancer immunotherapies.
Inside the product
IMU combines high-fidelity multi-omic analysis with proprietary machine learning to extract what it describes as over 100 million immune data points from a single blood sample. The company positions this as a way to move immune analysis from fragmented, low-resolution tools to a system-level, standardised view that can be applied across multiple therapeutic areas.
Active programmes include stem cell and bone marrow transplantation, solid organ transplantation and immuno-oncology work within MANIFEST. MANIFEST is a UK research consortium focused on understanding why patients respond differently to immunotherapies; IMU’s role is to provide detailed immune readouts that can be correlated with clinical outcomes.
Who are the investors?
The round was co-led by IQ Capital and Molten Ventures, and supported by The British Business Bank and Meltwind alongside existing backers. The financing was oversubscribed, reflecting continued investor appetite for companies building datasets and analytics around human biology.
In the announcement, Dr Inga Deakin, Partner at Molten Ventures, said:
When we first invested in IMU in 2024, we believed deep immune profiling combined with AI could unlock something genuinely transformative in precision medicine. Our participation in this round reflects what we've seen since: a team that executes and a platform that delivers. The immune system sits at the heart of almost every disease; a company that can interrogate it at this resolution has the potential to redefine how we match the right treatment to the right patient at the right time. We're proud to be IMU's largest shareholder and delighted to welcome IQ Capital and the British Business Bank as investors to the round, their support is a further corroboration of what IMU is building. We're excited about what comes next.
In the announcement, Dr Alex Wilson, Partner at IQ Capital, said:
We’re thrilled to support IMU on the next step in their journey as a co-lead investor within this latest funding round. With the world’s largest immune dataset and proprietary machine learning analytics, IMU is pioneering research to realise the huge value of health data, creating better insights for clinicians and improved outcomes for patients. We are proud to be a part of the company’s next phase, and are excited to see what the company is able to accomplish as it grows and develops its technology.
In the announcement, Dr Carmine Circelli, Senior Investment Director, Life Sciences at British Business Bank, said:
IMU represents a rare combination of proprietary data scale and deep biological insight. By generating an unprecedented, high-resolution view of the human immune system, the company is creating a foundational platform with the potential to transform how disease is understood and treated. We are excited to support the team as they scale their platform here in the UK and translate this capability into meaningful impact for patients.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Dr John Baker, Chief Executive Officer of IMU Biosciences, said:
We are delighted to announce IMU’s fundraise, which will allow us to expand our operations and develop our platform whilst continuing to deploy our groundbreaking technology across our clinical programmes as we work to fundamentally change how we understand, diagnose, and treat disease.
Despite the immune system’s profound importance on all aspects of our health, the system as a whole remains poorly understood – obscured by tools that are fragmented, mechanistic and low-resolution. With the largest immune system dataset globally and proprietary technology, IMU is uniquely positioned to fuel discoveries, devise treatments and empower clinicians; improving outcomes for patients across the full spectrum of human health and disease.
Baker is part of a founding team of experimental immunologists and computational biologists with experience from the Francis Crick Institute and King’s College London. The company frames its approach as translating academic know-how into a standardized, clinically deployable platform.
The bigger picture
The deal adds to a steady flow of funding into UK life sciences companies building data and analytics platforms for biomedicine. Large, labelled human datasets are increasingly valued by drug developers and clinical researchers, but they also require robust governance and clinical partnerships to be useful in regulated settings. IMU’s ties to transplantation and cancer immunotherapy research place it within areas where predictive biomarkers are in high demand.
The new capital and the involvement of public-backed vehicles such as the British Business Bank signal continued public-private support for data-driven biotech in the UK. As the sector matures, companies that can demonstrate clinical utility and regulatory readiness are likely to attract more follow-on investment from both specialist and generalist investors.
They've invested in IMU Bioscience
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| Investors | Investment Focus | Startup Investments | Round Size | Connect |
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 IQ Capital( ) | IMU BioscienceImperagenNyoboltRivanTropic+19 | |||
IMU BioscienceMAIA TechnologyModo Energy+12 | ||||
IMU BioscienceAppositeStirLight | ||||
 Meltwind( ) | IMU BioscienceTrogenixEnhanced GenomicsQureight+2 | |||
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