The NATO Innovation Fund has co-led a $35 million Series A round into Portal Biotech, a U.K.-based life sciences startup that claims it has developed the world's first platform for full-length, single-molecule protein sequencing.
This marks the fund's first investment in a biotechnology firm and signals a strategic move to boost global defense against future biological threats, Reuters says. Portal Biotech was founded in 2021 by Andy Heron and Giovanni Maglia, according to the company's website. The following year, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the NATO Innovation Fund was launched with plans to invest more than $1 billion into cutting-edge defense technologies, Reuters reports. The fund is backed by 24 NATO member nations, including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, and France, according to the NATO Innovation Fund’s website.
