How Tubulis used Ideals to improve investors’ communication and raise €60M for drug development

Overview

The German biotech start-up Tubulis is on a mission to revolutionize the field of targeted therapeutics. Using proprietary technologies and medical expertise, they’re developing new medicines to tackle toxicity issues that limit the efficacy of antibody-drug conjugates.

At the start of 2022, they decided to look for new funds to intensify their research projects, and came to Ideals to improve communication with existing and potential investors.

With Ideals, the funding round was a success. The VDR gave them an edge when approaching investors, helping the company secure €60 million in investment for their research into the next generation of chemotherapy drugs.

The context

Based in Munich, Tubulis has been developing a suite of complementary technology platforms as well as a pipeline of innovative protein-drug conjugates that can target specific cancer cells. 

In 2022, they already had a group of loyal investors who believed in their vision and supported their research over the years. But with the high-level of interest during the funding process, the Tubulis team saw the potential to expand their support system and bring on board a new wave of investors.

They knew they needed technology to simplify communication with a diverse group of potential partners while ensuring the highest levels of data security.

Key challenges

The company had not used virtual data rooms before and used to communicate with investors over email, exchanging their confidential data with attachments or via data transfer websites. 

It was imperative to find a solution that could provide the peace of mind they needed to continue their research.

Their key requirements were having:

• Options to set and amend different permission levels
• Reports that would allow them to monitor activity
• The ability to open multiple data rooms for different projects
• A server based in Europe, or better still, in Germany

Solution

With Ideals, the Tubulis team optimized their communication with investors and partners. Using the VDR, they were able to:

• Quickly create multiple data rooms, each tailored to a specific project
• Have absolute control over user logins
• Easily allocate different roles for each project

The secure data storage, on a server located in Frankfurt, fulfilled their CEO’s paramount requirement. And very soon, investors, lawyers, shareholders, and the board of directors were granted seamless access to confidential information. 

The Tubulis team had absolute power over who saw what and, as their CEO, Dr. Dominik Schumacher, highlighted, “permission levels were very important, and the monitoring reports were essential, as we had several projects running at the same time.”

The future

Tubulis currently has 24 ongoing projects, each with a separate room. Because of the gain in efficiency during the funding round, they are now also using the platform to:

• Improve collaboration during resolutions, contracts, and patent registrations
• Operate as a secure database, including reports of clinical trials

With all the many projects Tubulis is carrying out with Ideals, they are not only pleased about the data security but also with “the tremendous customer service.” 

Dominik concludes that he is delighted with the team’s choice, ”Ideals is the first VDR we used, it’s easy to use, and the feedback from investors and partners is always really positive!”