- SRTD Biotech has raised a €31.5M seed round, led by Mérieux Equity Partners.
- The venture arms of Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly also participated.
- This round is more than three times the seven-figure seed SRTD round that closed in November 2024.
SRTD Biotech, a German startup, closed an oversubscribed €31.5 million seed round, co-led by Mérieux Equity Partners via its Mérieux Innovation 2 fund and NRW.BANK and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund as co-leads. Lilly Ventures, HTGF and Anobis Asset also joined.
Founded in 2019, SRTD develops selectively expressed RNA (seRNA). Unlike conventional mRNA drugs, which any cell can read, seRNA constructs are inactive unless a specific RNA disease marker is present.
With that marker present, the construct becomes active, and the cell produces the therapeutic protein. In the absence of the marker, no protein is made. SRTD says this approach overcomes the limitations of drugs that target cell surface proteins.
SRTD uses three platforms: seRNA constructs; a fusogenic lipid nanoparticle (fLNP) delivery system that can reach the liver, lung, brain, and other organs; and a synthetic biology platform that uses bioinformatics and AI-driven RNA design. Lipid nanoparticles are fat bubbles that deliver RNA into cells.
The company says it has four preclinical programmes in its pipeline. The constructs are designed to kill cells in primary liver and lung cancer, reprogram cells in liver fibrosis, and dampen activity in autoimmune disease. All programmes share the same fundamental design; the only differences are the marker that triggers the construct and the effector protein it produces.
From a Jülich research group to a €31.5M seed
SRTD credits Dr Bernd Hoffmann as the inventor of the seRNA construct and the fLNP platform. He is a group leader at Forschungszentrum Jülich, has published over 100 papers and has founded three companies.
Matthias Alder was named CEO after the round. He served as CEO of Nasdaq-listed Gain Therapeutics from September 2022 until June 2024, when Gain said he left to pursue other opportunities. SRTD says he has held C-suite roles at public biotech companies and led or executed more than $10 billion of biotech transactions. Its website lists earlier roles at Cytos, Sucampo, Micromet, Novartis, and Autolus.
“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. Having worked closely with the company to strengthen its strategy, build its leadership team and establish a scalable platform, we are delighted to lead this financing with our Mérieux Innovation 2 fund (MI2) alongside an exceptional group of investors,” said Kristin Thompson, a director at Mérieux.
“SRTD Biotech shows how cutting-edge research from North Rhine-Westphalia can open up new ways to treat many diseases with significant unmet medical needs. Bringing innovations like these from research into medical practice takes capital,” added Johanna Antonie Tjaden-Schulte, a member of NRW.BANK’s managing board.
The biotech closed its first undisclosed seven-figure seed round in November 2024, led by HTGF and several business angels. HTGF is the only investor named in both of the rounds. The new round is over three times the size of the first and is also a seed round.
The funding will support preclinical work in preparation for an IND application, which would allow the company to begin clinical trials in the US. In 2024, SRTD aimed to have liver cancer candidates in clinical development within three years.
The risk: no clinical data and a cooler mRNA market
SRTD is entering a market with different size estimates. BCC Research values global mRNA therapeutics at $7.71 billion in 2025 and $7.69 billion in 2030, with COVID vaccines making up most of the market.
Competitors have raised more funding. Strand Therapeutics, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, raised a $153 million Series B led by Kinnevik in August 2025 to develop programmable mRNA for cancer.
SRTD says it controls expression based on RNA markers inside diseased cells.
Capital for European biotech is growing but still uneven. PitchBook says Europe now accounts for 20.5% of global biotech funding, its highest share since 2018, but US startups still raise about three times as much. Pharma venture arms are active in RNA, with M Ventures and Pfizer Ventures backing STORM Therapeutics’ $56 million Series C in April 2026. In AI-led drug design, we reported that Isomorphic Labs is in talks to raise $5 billion at a $50 billion valuation.
The main questions are whether its self-reading RNA cell technology can make mRNA drugs safer and whether either pharmaceutical investor will become a strategic partner.
