ATEL Ventures has completed an agreement to provide $10M of growth capital to Vial, a next-generation pharma company.
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, Vial is a clinical-stage biotech company based in San Francisco that has raised $100M+ to date from leading life sciences investors including General Catalyst, Buckley Ventures, and Byers Capital. Vial is focused on advancing a pipeline of potentially best-in-class biologics and RNA therapeutics across areas of unmet medical need.
Vial recently initiated dosing of healthy volunteers in its first clinical trial for a novel subcutaneous, extended half-life monoclonal antibody targeting TL1A, which is being developed as a potentially best-in-class treatment for people living with moderate-to-severe IBD, as well as other I&I and fibrotic diseases. The $10M from ATEL Ventures will complement Vial’s historical equity financings and enable the Vial team to advance additional assets into the clinic in 2025, leveraging its vertically integrated drug development, clinical trial technology, and clinical operations platform.
“Drug development and clinical trials have always been slow-moving and capital-intensive,” said Steven Rea, President, ATEL Ventures. “Vial’s platform turns all of that on its head, streamlining the process and enabling new drugs to get to market that much faster.”
“We are reimagining drug development, using technology to build for scale,” said Simon Burns, CEO of Vial. The financing from ATEL complements our historical equity funding and supports our ability to accelerate the number of clinical stage assets in our pipeline.
ATEL Ventures has finalized its support for Menlo Micro, a pioneering manufacturer of efficient micro-electrical-mechanical switches. This initial round of financing will help accelerate the acquisition of additional manufacturing equipment for Menlo Micro’s facility in Ithaca, NY.
Based in Irvine, CA with R&D and manufacturing operations in Albany and Ithaca, NY, Menlo Micro has raised over $225M million in equity funding to bring its breakthrough switching technology to market. The company’s Ideal Switch® eliminates compromises and tradeoffs by combining the benefits of electromechanical and solid-state switches into the best of both worlds, which delivers more than 99 percent reductions in size, weight, power, and cost to dozens of industries such as aerospace and defense, telecommunications, consumer electronics, industrial IoT, and test and measurement.
The new financing will bolster Menlo Micro’s ability to ramp within its initial market: semiconductor test and measurement. Today’s high-performance semiconductors, such as GPUs, APUs and HBM, require rigorous high-speed signal testing (64 Gbps +) before reaching customers, and Menlo Micro’s Ideal Switch® eliminates the inefficiencies inherent in typical test procedures, enabling semiconductor manufacturers to test more devices, faster, and at lower cost.
“After following Menlo Micro for a number of years we’re excited to be partnering with them to further support demand for their Ideal Switch®, which dramatically reduces size, weight, power and cost versus legacy relays and switches,” said Lance Torrey, Senior Director, ATEL Ventures. “Our financing will help Menlo Micro continue to scale its state-of-the-art manufacturing infrastructure and bring its technology platform to wider range of customers.”
Menlo Micro’s technology is backed by over 65 patent families comprised of more than 300 issued patents, with its core material science-based intellectual property originating from GE Research. The company’s innovative approach has garnered investments from leading firms including the Build Collective (formerly Future Shape), Standard Investments, Paladin Capital, Vertical Venture Partners, DBL Partners, Piva Capital, Corning, Microchip and others.
“This financing helps support our continued growth within our initial markets as well as the acceleration of our Ideal Switch® technology into our most strategic application – smart and efficient power controls,” said Mark Czepiel, Menlo Micro’s Chief Financial Officer. “We are well-positioned to meet the increasing demand for more reliable, efficient, and scalable switching solutions.”
ATEL Ventures has a long history of funding next-generation technology companies, providing flexible capital solutions that enable high-growth businesses in semiconductors, chip manufacturing, space technology and other sectors to scale critical infrastructure.
ATEL Ventures has announced an agreement to provide equipment financing to Harbinger, a Southern California-based manufacturer of electric trucks, to enable the company to expand its manufacturing capacity.
Harbinger is focused on meeting the demand for medium-duty electric vehicles (EVs) with a first-of-its-kind vertically integrated EV platform designed to deliver improvements in safety, driver experience and vehicle operation.
“More and more commercial fleet operators are turning to EVs, and Harbinger provides a solution with zero price acquisition premium over gas or diesel-powered vehicles,” said Steven Rea, President, ATEL Ventures, Inc. “The future is electric and while other manufacturers are busy electrifying older vehicles, we believe Harbinger’s ground-up solution will emerge as a leader in this sector.”
John Harris, CEO and Co-Founder of Harbinger said: “We have received 4,000 orders from customers including Bimbo Bakeries USA, THOR Industries, Mail Management Services and more. The financing provided by ATEL Ventures will help us expand our manufacturing capabilities.”
Alongside the debt financing by ATEL Ventures, Harbinger has attracted over $100M of venture investment from Greycroft, Tiger Global, Ridgeline, THOR Industries and others, including an oversubscribed $73M Series A round.
ATEL Ventures has announced the completion of an agreement to provide $20M of growth debt to Isar Aerospace, a launch service provider for small and medium-sized satellites.
Founded and headquartered in Munich, Germany, Isar Aerospace is developing Spectrum, a two-stage rocket specifically designed to launch small to medium satellites and satellite constellations into orbit.
Isar Aerospace is building on a high vertical integration and uses advanced technologies and a high degree of automation in its manufacturing, to make access to space more flexible and cost-efficient. The capital provided by ATEL Ventures will enable the company to finance the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment used in the production of its launch vehicles.
Satellites that will be launched by Isar’s Spectrum vehicle have the capacity to bring internet connectivity to rural communities and those in developing countries—currently around one-third of the earth’s population. They can also enable multiple use cases around Earth Observation or Navigation. Such satellites will have a key role in fighting climate change or enabling smart mobility.
Steven Rea, President, ATEL Ventures said: “Satellites have enormous potential to improve access to telecommunication, resource tracking and management, and to help tackle climate change. The satellite market is expected to be worth $1TN by 2040. Launch is the key bottleneck in that revolution and we therefore expect Isar Aerospace to play a major part in it by enabling flexible and cost-efficient access to space.”
David Kownator, Chief Financial Officer, Isar Aerospace said: “Developing a launch vehicle along the approach of vertical integration requires upfront investment in specialist equipment. This agreement with ATEL Ventures is an important component of our financing model, especially as we are starting the construction of a new large-scale manufacturing facility.”
