- Funding will be used to scale the first technology for measuring and modulating the efficacy of the protein secretory pathway, a critical bottleneck affecting the development and manufacturing of therapeutic proteins.
- The Avenue technology generates thousands of versions of a therapeutic protein, outperforming current industry standards in yield and quality.
- This technology enables new, often previously unfeasible, therapeutic targets, for example, in cancer care, infectious diseases, and immunology, to reach patients faster, spanning antibodies, vaccines, AI-designed proteins, gene therapies, and many more.
Palo Alto, California, USA (January 12, 2026) – Avenue Biosciences, a protein engineering technology company, today announced $5.7M in seed extension funding round co-led by Balnord, and Tesi, with support from existing investors Voima Ventures, Inventure, University of Helsinki, and Dimerent, to scale a high-throughput protein engineering technology that accelerates the discovery of protein-based therapies and tools for the biotechnology industry.
The technology uses a library of thousands of naturally occurring and engineered signal peptides to measure the efficiency of protein biogenesis in the secretory pathway – the machinery responsible for folding, modifying, and secreting therapeutic proteins.
“The secretory pathway is one of the remaining black boxes in therapeutic protein production. Despite its importance, the current industry standard relies heavily on a decades-old playbook, testing only a small set of safe signal peptides rather than exploring thousands of sequence variants. Our technology makes the increasingly complex proteins, such as AI-designed proteins or multispecifics, more manufacturable, improving access to lifesaving therapies,”comments Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and co-founder of Avenue Biosciences.
Signal peptides are intrinsic components of proteins and represent a major untapped opportunity in biotechnology, as they critically affect protein production and quality at the cellular level.
“Novel protein-based biologics under development for example in cancer, rare diseases or immunology, are becoming increasingly targeted and effective, performing several functions with one therapeutic component: Bring immune cells to the right place, activate them, and recognize disease cells more specifically. However, this adds complexity to the protein structure, adding manufacturing cost, or in the worst case, preventing the development completely”, comments COO, co-founder and Helsinki laboratory site lead Katja Rosti.
Ultimately, the signal peptides are removed from the mature protein, keeping the target essentially the same as the original, making this approach highly useful also in manufacturing biosimilars, the lower-priced versions of existing therapies.
The Avenue technology collects industry-first data sets on how specific signal peptides impact specific protein targets.
“Avenue’s technology taps into some of the largest opportunities in biotech right now: it significantly lowers the costs of biologics and transforms therapeutic protein manufacturing with the use of AI. Their combination of wet lab and machine learning enables the development of high-quality prediction tools for therapeutic developers, targeting the biggest bottlenecks in the industry. The team has shown incredible execution, with really strong industry names as their clients”, comments Gabriele Poteliunaite, Investor at Balnord.
“Many life-altering therapeutic innovations remain out of reach for most of the global population. We see significant growth opportunities for Avenue’s technology, which is deeply rooted in Finnish scientific discovery, and has the potential to become a gold standard in its field”, comments Investment Director Miia Kaye from Tesi.
This financing brings Avenue Biosciences’ total funding raised to date since 2024 to $8.7M. Avenue Biosciences’ technology originates from years of research at the University of Helsinki, Finland, and the Ville Paavilainen laboratory.
Further information:
CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo, tpa@avenuebiosciences.com
COO Katja Rosti, katja.rosti@avenuebiosciences.com
Communications: Juulia Simonen, juulia.simonen@avenuebiosciences.com, +35850305 9018
Avenue Biosciences
Avenue Biosciences is a transatlantic biotechnology company dedicated to accelerating the discovery and development of protein biologics, so that no life-saving therapy goes unrealized because of production barriers. Avenue Biosciences has developed a protein engineering platform that combines organic biology and machine learning to boost protein production. The proprietary method is based on years of scientific research from the University of Helsinki, Finland.
