Signet Therapeutics Secures Nearly $10M in Series Angel+ Funding to Advance AI-Driven, Disease Model-Enabled Targeted Cancer Therapies

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) has exclusively learned that today, Signet Therapeutics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (Signet Therapeutics, hereinafter referred to as "SIGNET"), an innovative cancer targeted drug R&D company based on disease models, announced the completion of its Angel+ round financing, raising nearly $10 million. This round was led by 5Y Capital (formerly Morningside Venture Capital), with co-investment from Yayi Capital and Blue Ocean Capital, while existing investors Tiantu Capital and Yunjiu Capital continued to follow on. The funds will be used to accelerate the clinical advancement of the company’s two innovative targeted drug pipelines currently under development, as well as to expand and apply its disease modeling platform. Combined with the approximately RMB 60 million angel round announced in March this year, SIGNET has secured over RMB 100 million in investment within less than a year of its establishment.

Founded in late 2020, SIGNET was established by a founding team from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University—a globally premier research hospital integrating "basic translational research-clinical trials-cancer treatment," with approximately 1,100 ongoing clinical trials. Leveraging the genomic profiles of cancer patients, the SIGNET team has developed a proprietary disease model. Through a deep strategic partnership with XtalPi, an AI-driven pharmaceutical company, SIGNET is rapidly advancing two targeted therapy R&D pipelines into the clinical stage. Concurrently, SIGNET is expanding its disease model platform to broader applications in novel drug discovery, empowering innovative biopharmaceutical companies in areas such as pharmacodynamic evaluation and novel target identification.

Before founding Signet Therapeutics, the research findings from the gastric cancer TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) project, led by Dr. Zhang Haisheng’s mentor Adam Bass at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard University, classified gastric cancer—the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide—into four distinct molecular subtypes. These results were published in *Nature* and represent a milestone in the molecular classification of gastric cancer. Among these, diffuse gastric cancer is categorized as a genomically stable subtype, indicating that conventional targeted therapies against common targets such as HER2 and EGFR are unsuitable for its treatment. Furthermore, patients with diffuse gastric cancer often show poor responsiveness to traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, underscoring an urgent clinical need for effective targeted therapeutics for this disease.

Dr. Zhang Haisheng and his team have dedicated years to this field. Building upon the organoid and transgenic mouse models they established, they utilized proteomics and other methodologies to identify potent therapeutic targets for this type of cancer. The related research was published in the top-tier cancer research journal Cancer Discovery (IF: 39.4). These findings rapidly filled a critical gap in this field, while also inspiring more scholars and experts to engage in research in this domain.

While maintaining its focus on gastric cancer research, SIGNET has also developed a proprietary disease model platform for oncology drug development. This platform addresses critical bottlenecks in efficacy evaluation during new drug discovery, further empowering and accelerating target discovery and the translational development of targeted therapies. Efficacy evaluation serves as a fundamental basis for the screening and optimization of drug candidates. In conventional drug development, in vitro cell line models are employed to simulate molecular responses within the human body; however, their results often diverge markedly from actual clinical outcomes, which can directly lead to clinical trial failures. Drawing on years of research and specialized expertise in cancer biology, functional biology, and genomics, the SIGNET team has established a targeted cancer disease model platform that utilizes authentic genomic data from cancer patients. This platform enables the early acquisition of data that more closely mirrors real in vivo drug responses in patients, providing timely and reliable critical information for drug screening, evaluation, and optimization, thereby significantly enhancing the success rate of clinical trials.

SIGNET’s disease models have already demonstrated promising initial results in the R&D of targeted therapies for gastric cancer. The team will therefore expand this technology to establish disease models for other malignancies, including colorectal, lung, and breast cancers. This advancement will bring a transformative improvement to pharmacodynamic evaluation, empower pharmaceutical companies to discover novel, clinically relevant targets with strong development potential, and accelerate the entry of more targeted therapies into the R&D pipeline.

In 2020, SIGNET established an in-depth strategic partnership with XtalPi Technology, a leading enterprise in the AI drug discovery sector. By fully leveraging XtalPi’s expertise in AI-driven drug development and medicinal chemistry, the collaboration rapidly designed and synthesized a series of highly potent candidate molecules. SIGNET utilized its disease model R&D platform to screen and evaluate these molecules. Working alongside XtalPi, the teams conducted iterative optimization based on an “enzyme activity–disease model function–enzyme activity” R&D workflow, successfully securing a preclinical candidate compound with independent intellectual property rights in just over six months. This drug holds the potential to fill a critical gap in the targeted therapy market for diffuse gastric cancer and is expected to significantly improve patient survival. Furthermore, its therapeutic scope could be extended to targeted treatments for other malignancies, including ovarian, breast, and pancreatic cancers. Building upon this foundation, future treatment strategies will actively combine this agent with chemotherapeutic drugs and immunotherapies, which may substantially further improve patient survival outcomes.

Building on the valuable experience accumulated from this pipeline project, SIGNET and XtalPi will continue to deepen their collaboration by applying the "AI drug discovery + disease model platform" R&D model to the development of an entirely new drug pipeline targeting another novel target.

Dr. Zhang Haisheng, Founder and CEO of SIGNET, stated: “SIGNET’s rapid progress in securing two funding rounds and advancing R&D within a relatively short timeframe, along with the swift expansion of our team, would not have been possible without the trust and support of our investors. We aim to expand our technology platform and leverage our expertise to rapidly translate novel discoveries in oncology into targeted therapies that address unmet therapeutic needs. The company has established an innovation center in Boston, USA, dedicated to original innovation and breakthroughs in cancer research; its Shenzhen headquarters serves as the core new drug R&D center, deeply rooted in the industry and driven by unmet clinical needs, to advance our drug development pipeline and platform enablement. Over the next three to five years, our strategic goal is to successfully transition from an agile boutique Biotech to a comprehensive Biopharma company.”

Jing Xutian, Managing Director at 5Y Capital, stated: “Both of Signet’s two first-in-class pipelines currently in development are driven by vast unmet clinical needs. Their R&D outcomes will not only drive pharmaceutical innovation across China but also bring new hope to cancer patients for whom no effective treatments are currently available. Beyond highly recognizing the Signet team’s global leadership in cancer research, particularly in gastric cancer, we are also very optimistic about the transformative role of the company’s disease model-based platform in empowering new drug development. We believe Signet’s differentiated advantage, anchored in its disease model platform, lies in its ability to address challenges traditionally encountered during the clinical phase of drug development at the preclinical stage. We are confident that this will become an irreversible trend in new drug R&D.”

Yue Xin, Partner at Yayi Capital, also expressed strong endorsement of the SIGNET team. Regarding this Angel+ round financing, she stated: "SIGNET fully leverages its profound expertise in biology and disease, forming a powerful synergy with industry-leading AI drug discovery technologies to accelerate pipeline development. This gives us great confidence in its future pipeline advancement and clinical performance. Signet's disease modeling platform can enhance the real-world clinical response rate of drugs, addressing the core challenges that impact pharmaceutical companies' R&D risks. In empowering major pharmaceutical companies with new drug development and precision medicine, its prospects are limitless."

Mr. Yang Feng, Founding Partner and CEO of Blue Ocean Capital, stated: “The value of SIGNET lies not only in the significant efficiency gains driven by its innovative drug R&D model, but more importantly, in its pioneering departure from traditional drug discovery paradigms within the biopharmaceutical sector. Through bidirectional validation of AI and disease models, it overcomes the limitations of conventional compound libraries and aligns the drug screening process more closely with actual patient responses, thereby yielding ideal molecules with high innovativeness and druggability. Dr. Zhang is a leading scholar in diffuse gastric cancer research in China, and under his leadership, he has assembled one of the most cutting-edge teams in the industry. The rapid advancement of SIGNET’s pipeline and disease model platform demonstrates its tremendous potential to evolve into a globally competitive innovative pharmaceutical company.”

Wei Guoxing, Partner at Tiantu Capital, an existing shareholder, stated: "Since our previous investment round, we have been delighted to witness the rapid advancement of the company’s R&D progress and the swift expansion of its team. The R&D pipeline has expanded from one to two, with the second pipeline demonstrating broader application prospects. Meanwhile, the disease modeling platform is being actively optimized. We are confident that this platform will play a transformative role in empowering major pharmaceutical companies to accelerate new drug discovery in the near future. We will continue to support the company and its team in expediting product development, addressing unmet clinical needs, and leveraging Shenzhen efficiency to drive innovation in China’s pharmaceutical sector."

Signet Therapeutics is an innovative cancer targeted drug R&D company that leverages disease models. Founded in late 2020 and originally established at Harvard University, its core team comprises distinguished professionals from academia and the pharmaceutical industry, including Harvard University, MIT, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Headquartered in Shenzhen with a branch in Boston, USA, the name “Signet” not only serves as a phonetic transliteration but also embodies the vision of “harboring hope and pursuing truth through rigorous inquiry.” Driven by the team’s professional expertise, cutting-edge research, and relentless pursuit of excellence, the company strives to bring hope to cancer patients with currently unmet medical needs, and remains dedicated to transforming highly lethal malignant cancers into manageable chronic conditions through precision targeted therapy. Currently, the company operates over 1,200 square meters of office and R&D facilities, with its R&D team rapidly expanding.

5Y Capital currently manages USD and RMB dual-currency funds with approximately RMB 32 billion in AUM. 5Y Capital seeks, supports, and empowers lone entrepreneurs, providing comprehensive backing that ranges from psychological encouragement to full-spectrum operational support. We believe that when the "you" deemed crazy by others begins to be believed in, the world will be forever transformed.

Invested companies include Trip.com Group (NASDAQ: CTRP), JOYY Inc. (NASDAQ: YY), Xiaomi Group (HKEX: 01810), Kingsoft Office (STAR Market: 688111), Agora (NASDAQ: API), XPeng Inc. (NYSE: XPEV), Kuaishou (HKEX: 1024), WeDoctor Group, SenseTime, Horizon Robotics, Pony.ai, etc.

Founded in 2018, Yael Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund dedicated to the biotechnology and healthcare sectors. Addressing the opportunities and challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, the fund identifies and supports the global R&D of First-in-class innovative drugs, as well as startups driving technological innovation in artificial intelligence, automation, and related fields. By bridging global industry, capital, and talent, Yael Capital aims to build a synergistic ecosystem where emerging technologies and the pharmaceutical industry mutually reinforce each other. This initiative seeks to address the industry's current challenges of prolonged development cycles and low returns, ultimately accelerating the advancement of innovative therapies.

Blue Ocean Capital focuses on growth-stage and M&A investments in innovative biopharmaceutical and medical device companies within the healthcare sector. Its core team possesses extensive international experience spanning scientific research, industry operations, and investment. The firm manages multiple dual-currency (RMB and USD) funds, with an investment track record that has repeatedly garnered industry accolades. Committed to deep investment and value creation, Blue Ocean Capital drives positive transformation in portfolio companies through highly effective investment management, thereby delivering long-term value to investors.

Lanhai Capital recently led a RMB 350 million investment in Koka Lifesciences, an innovative medical device R&D company focused on structural heart disease; other recent healthcare investment deals also include HighTide Therapeutics, Suzhou Ribo Life Science, and Bo’an Biotech.

Established in 2016, the Tiantu VC team had previously managed three VC funds and one angel fund, with a cumulative AUM exceeding RMB 3 billion. Through four years of practice, it has developed a relatively mature investment decision-making framework and invested in over 60 early-stage projects.