SRTD Biotech Raises €31.5M for Precision mRNA Therapies

SRTD Biotech has secured €31.5 million in an oversubscribed Seed round to develop next-generation mRNA therapeutics that activate selectively inside diseased cells. Mérieux Equity Partners led the financing, with NRW.BANK and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund joining as co-leads. Lilly Ventures, HTGF and the Freiburg-based family office Anobis Asset also participated.

Kristin Thompson, Director at Mérieux Equity Partners, said: “We believe SRTD Biotech has the potential to redefine what is possible with mRNA therapeutics. Its highly differentiated technology addresses one of the key challenges facing the field today: achieving precise, selective therapeutic activity while limiting effects on healthy cells.”

Thompson said Mérieux had worked with SRTD to strengthen its strategy, build its leadership team and establish a scalable platform. The firm led the financing through its Mérieux Innovation 2 fund (MI2), alongside the co-leads and other participants.

Founded in 2019 in Jülich by Dr. Bernd Hoffmann and Dr. Heribert Bohlen, SRTD develops cell-specific messenger RNA (mRNA) expression. According to the company, intracellular RNA disease markers activate the mRNA exclusively within target cells. That design lets its selectively expressed RNA (seRNA) constructs control therapeutic payload expression in diseased cells while minimizing exposure in healthy tissue.

SRTD says the approach could yield safer, more effective and differentiated RNA therapies. The company aims to overcome the limitations of non-selective mRNA expression and the constraints of targeting cell-surface proteins.

What does the financing change for SRTD Biotech?

The €31.5 million round provides capital for further therapeutic development. Three appointments place leaders in charge of the company, technology and business development.

SRTD combines three platforms: proprietary seRNA technology; a novel fusogenic LNP delivery platform; and a synthetic biology platform with bioinformatics and AI-driven RNA design. The delivery platform targets the liver, lung, brain and other organs. Together, the company says, they provide an end-to-end solution for generating differentiated RNA therapies across therapeutic areas and indications.

SRTD appointed Matthias Alder as CEO after the financing. SRTD said Alder has held CEO, COO and CBO roles at publicly traded biotech companies in the United States and Europe. Alder said: “The proceeds will enable SRTD to advance Bernd’s vision of delivering safe, effective, and differentiated RNA therapeutics to patients whose diseases remain inadequately addressed by current therapies.”

SRTD appointed Dr. Heinz Koeppl as Chief Technology Officer and founder of its synthetic biology platform. The company said he also serves as a professor at Technische Universität Darmstadt and director of its Centre for Synthetic Biology. Together with Dr. Hoffmann, he will lead scientific strategy, especially RNA marker identification and AI-based construct optimization. The aim is selective and efficient activation of seRNA constructs.

The most recent executive leader to join, Dr. Jens Hennecke, is Chief Business Officer. He will drive business development and strategy, seeking R&D collaborations in therapeutic areas and indications beyond SRTD’s own product pipeline.

NRW.BANK invested through its NRW.Venture EU Tech&Scale fund. Under its InvestEU partnership, a European Commission guarantee enables the Düsseldorf-based bank to invest a total of up to €200 million in additional funding for young scale-ups through the fund.

Johanna Antonie Tjaden-Schulte, a member of NRW.BANK’s Managing Board, said SRTD shows how North Rhine-Westphalia research can open new ways to treat diseases with significant unmet needs. She said moving such innovations into medical practice requires capital. Her investment is intended to help SRTD develop the technology in North Rhine-Westphalia and scale it internationally from there.

For investors and drug-development partners, the practical test is whether SRTD can convert three linked technologies into selective therapies and R&D collaborations outside its own pipeline. The seed round provides capital and three senior appointments; disease-specific development will determine whether the platform can scale.