Zhidao Biologics Secures Tens of Millions RMB in Series A Funding Led by Mifang Capital to Advance Protein Engineering Technologies

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that biotechnology company Leto Laboratories recently announced the completion of its Series A financing round, amounting to tens of millions of RMB. The round was led by Med-Fine Capital, with participation from Huai Ge Capital, Qi Rong Venture Capital, and existing investor Sherpa Partners. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of its protein engineering and assay platforms.

Leto Laboratories, founded in December 2014 and headquartered in Beijing, leverages its core protein-directed refolding technology to address critical technical challenges across multiple stages of biopharmaceutical and protein product development.

In recent years, as the share of biopharmaceuticals in China’s overall pharmaceutical market has continued to rise, demand for proteins—key upstream inputs in the industry chain—has surged. Dr. Zhang Wei, founder of Leto Laboratories (Beijing Zhidao Biotechnology Co., Ltd.), noted that due to the exceptionally high barriers to entry in protein design and manufacturing technologies, the vast majority of core protein raw materials in China still rely heavily on imports. This dependence has left domestic companies at a competitive disadvantage. Leto Laboratories aims to enter the market from the upstream R&D segment of the protein value chain, leveraging its team’s extensive experience in recombinant protein development to break the foreign monopoly on protein manufacturing and fill the gap in core technologies within China’s industry.

The Escherichia coli expression system is currently the most common and stable system for expressing exogenous proteins. Leto Laboratories’ core directed refolding technology can refold denatured solid-state proteins, which are abundantly expressed in E. coli, into highly active, properly folded proteins, at a manufacturing cost of less than one-tenth that of mammalian cell expression systems. To date, Leto Laboratories has established technical service collaborations with multiple publicly listed companies in China and has successfully fulfilled numerous high-value orders. Since its inception, the company has successfully produced more than 30 types of highly active cytokines and over 10 types of highly active proteases.

Leto Laboratories’ R&D team is primarily composed of professionals from leading biopharmaceutical companies in China and abroad. The founder, Dr. Wei Zhang, graduated from the University of Manchester School of Pharmacy, renowned as the top pharmacy school in Europe. He studied under Professor Kent Douglas, a distinguished British protein and molecular diagnostics expert and Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Dr. Zhang previously served as a Senior Researcher at the MRC Centre for Cell and Molecular Biology within the Institute of Cancer Research in London, a prominent UK cancer research center. He also spent five years engaged in frontline research, development, and management at Novo Nordisk.

Previously, Leto Laboratories received investments from Sherpa Capital and Shuimu Yide, an investment arm affiliated with the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Tsinghua University.

Med-Fine Capital specializes in investments within the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and life sciences sectors. Headquartered in Shanghai, its fund management team possesses extensive industry expertise in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, along with rich experience in venture capital. The firm has completed investments in more than twenty emerging biopharmaceutical companies, including Mabwell, Jingzhun Medical, BioRay, SinoMicro, Hanyu Medical, Ansong Technology, Jiajian Medical, Quest Medicine, Linko Pharmaceuticals, Zhenrong Pharma, Chengyi Biologics, Taili Biologics, and InnoVax.

Sherpa Investment is a professional healthcare investment fund established in 2018. The core team members have collaborated for nearly a decade, possessing extensive investment experience and a strong track record in China’s healthcare industry.

Sherpa (meaning “people of the East” in Tibetan) is an ethnic group residing on both sides of the Himalayas, renowned as “guides to Mount Everest.” The Sherpa team is committed to being the climbers behind the climbers, empowering entrepreneurs to scale the peaks of their careers.

Med-Fine Capital is a private equity investment fund focused on the healthcare and wellness industry, driven by a dual strategy of “active investment” and “in-depth investment banking services.” Its management team possesses extensive background in the medical and health sectors as well as substantial experience in equity investment. The fund’s portfolio includes multiple high-quality enterprises such as Kindly Medical Devices (interventional medical devices), Cofoe Medical (home-use medical devices), Shansi Pharmaceuticals (new drug R&D), WeLiZhiBo (new drug R&D), Ouwen Medical (a provincial-level medical device distribution and delivery platform), Bestar (clinical CRO), and Leto Laboratories (protein engineering).

Qirong Venture Capital was established in 2017 and jointly founded by institutions such as TusStar Science & Technology Services and Rongtong Capital. It manages multiple early-stage medical investment funds and private equity (PE) funds, with investments in more than ten companies. Representative investment cases include Suzhou Ribobio, Yaoxin Biopharma, and Boda Pharmaceutical.