Oakland-based Versanis Bio Raises a $70 Million Series A

 By David Gross

I’ll have the month end VC stats out as soon as I get my head out of lease documents, but August finished off strong after a tepid start.  The latest funding announcement comes out of the East Bay where Versanis Bio, a portfolio company of Aditum Bio, announced a large Series A to advance clinical trials of its anti-obesity monoclonal antibody.

You may be thinking the East Bay is typically for syn bio or CRISPR companies, but Aditum was started last year by two Novartis veterans as a holding company, and they brought in Atlas Ventures and Medicxi to syndicate the largest round they’ve done for a portfolio company.  The company will begin Phase 2 trails of the drug created at Novartis.  Versanis is currently based in downtown Oakland in Aditum’s 1100 Broadway office suite, which it shares with three other Aditum companies, and which also means it will likely be shopping for space, using Novartis facilities, or looking for a significant contract with a CRO.