Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland, July 21, 2026 – Immitra Bio today announced the successful completion of an upsized CHF 2.4 million pre-seed financing round. CHF 2.25 million was provided by venture capital and private investors, with an additional CHF 150k secured through non-dilutive funding sources. The round was led by Backbone Ventures and co-led by OCCIDENT, with participation from Another VC, Kickfund, Venture Kick, Zürcher Kantonalbank, FONGIT, ETH Foundation, and select private investors.
Immitra Bio is developing a platform for scalable, one-time curative in-vivo gene editing therapies based on its novel mutation-agnostic gene editing technology and digital target identification platform. The company's approach is designed to overcome key limitations of current gene editing therapies by avoiding complex ex-vivo cell manipulation, patient conditioning, stem cell transplantation, and personalized therapies.
The proceeds from the pre-seed round will primarily support preclinical proof-of-concept studies for Immitra Bio's lead candidate, IB-003, a potential one-time curative in-vivo gene editing treatment for an inherited anemia. In addition, the financing will support further discovery and validation work across Immitra Bio's select pipeline, enabled by the company's digital target discovery platform, as well as continued refinement of the platform.
"At Immitra Bio, we are advancing a fundamentally new approach to gene editing therapies and are proud to be backed by a syndicate of early-stage and life science specialist investors. This pre-seed financing enables important value inflection points for the company and lays the foundation for establishing Immitra Bio as a leader in in-vivo gene editing. Our goal is to make gene editing therapies scalable, commercially viable, and accessible to patients. Our platform has the potential to generate dozens of highly differentiated therapeutic assets in an accelerated fashion."
Jan Nelis, CEO and Co-Founder of Immitra Bio
"We were impressed by both the team and the technology. Jan and Amir combine deep scientific expertise with complementary entrepreneurial, scale-up, and big pharma experience, and came highly recommended by everyone we spoke to. Their elegant approach to mutation-agnostic gene editing has the potential to overcome important limitations of current gene editing technologies and could enable a broad platform across multiple genetic diseases."
Philippe Bernet, Managing Partner at Backbone Ventures
"Recent advances and growing market adoption of gene therapies have validated the enormous potential of curative genetic medicine. However, current approaches still face significant challenges, such as chemotherapy-related toxicities, manufacturing complexity, and limited scalability. Immitra Bio's differentiated in-vivo platform is designed to address these challenges head-on. We believe that combining non-viral delivery with a mutation-independent therapeutic approach has the potential to transform the treatment of genetic diseases and make curative therapies accessible to a much larger patient population. We are impressed by the team's bold vision and scientific excellence, and we are excited to support Immitra Bio in advancing the next generation of genetic medicines."
Paul Sunzenauer, OCCIDENT
About Immitra Bio
Immitra Bio was founded with the goal of bringing scalability and commercial viability to gene editing therapies. The company is developing in-vivo gene editing therapies that do not require complex ex-vivo cell manipulation, patient conditioning, or stem cell transplantation. Immitra Bio's digital target discovery platform and novel mode of editing enables the development of off-the-shelf drug formulations designed to treat all patients within a given disease, regardless of the underlying mutation. This mutation-agnostic approach addresses a key limitation in the field, where highly personalized and complex-to-manufacture therapies can restrict scalability, patient access, and commercial viability.
Visit www.immitrabio.com or follow us on LinkedIn.
About Backbone Ventures
Backbone Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm with offices in Zurich and Frankfurt. The firm backs bold founders across Europe who are building transformative companies across sectors. With a strong founder-first ethos, Backbone Ventures provides capital and strategic guidance to support scalable, long-term growth.
More information at www.backbone.vc.
About OCCIDENT
OCCIDENT invests in start-ups with a focus on spin-offs originating from scientific research, thus having a real impact and enabling concrete solutions for different challenges facing society today. As an owner-managed venture capital investor based in Munich, OCCIDENT supports start-ups in the life sciences sector from the seed stage onwards, accompanies their portfolio companies over the long term both financially and with their extensive experience, and thus enables founding teams to achieve outstanding results.
With a strong entrepreneurial mindset, OCCIDENT invests its own money and makes decisions based on sustainable potential for success. Co-operation with the founding teams of its portfolio companies motivates the OCCIDENT team and inspires them every day. They are energized by their passion and drive, and the often very intense exchange spurs them on to tackle challenges together. OCCIDENT's aim with each and every one of its investments is to make a positive contribution to society in a sustainable way.
More at www.occident.group.