Most immunotherapy research in oncology has concentrated on the adaptive immune system, the learned, antibody-generating machinery that checkpoint inhibitors like pembrolizumab are designed to amplify.
Kupando has spent seven years building a therapeutic platform around the other branch: the innate immune system, the body's older, faster-responding first line of defence that most pathogens and cancer cells have become adept at evading.
On Wednesday, the Schönefeld-based biopharmaceutical company announced an additional €10 million in Series A financing, taking its total Series A to €23 million.
The round was again led by Remiges Ventures, the Seattle and Tokyo-based US-Japan cross-border VC firm, and co-led by LifeCare Partners, the Basel investment advisory firm. All existing investors, Brandenburg Kapital, High-Tech Gründerfonds, and Ventura Biomed Investors, participated again. C
arma Fund, a Munich and Frankfurt-based life science and healthcare fund with €50 million under management, joined as a new investor.
The capital will fund a Phase 1b clinical study of KUP101 in patients with advanced solid tumours and accelerate preclinical work in infectious diseases, including antimicrobial-resistant infections.
The latter programme is sponsored by Germany's Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space, according to the company, though that claim has not been independently verified.
KUP101 is a dual Toll-Like Receptor agonist, specifically, a TLR 4 and TLR 7 agonist, formulated as two small molecules co-encapsulated in a liposomal delivery system.
Toll-Like Receptors are pattern recognition proteins on immune cells that detect molecular signals from pathogens and trigger innate immune responses.
Dual agonism of TLR 4 and TLR 7 simultaneously activates multiple immune pathways, inducing what immunologists call trained innate immunity: a form of epigenetic reprogramming that leaves innate immune cells in a heightened state of readiness long after the initial stimulus.
The approach is tissue-agnostic, meaning it is not designed for a specific tumour type, which broadens its potential patient population.
Kupando was founded in 2018 by Johanna Holldack, a physician and serial biotech executive whose earlier career took her through the CEO roles at MediGene AG, Telormedix SA, and Borean Pharma, and included a stint as a research associate at Harvard Medical School.
The founding concept, she has said, grew from an observation she made during a trip to Kenya: that animals relying solely on innate immunity, with no adaptive immune system to fall back on, are nonetheless capable of remarkable resilience against pathogens.
The scientific groundwork for KUP101 was laid at the laboratory of Prof. Dennis Carson at the University of California San Diego, whose research on TLR 4/7 agonists has been central to the field.
The initial €13 million Series A closed in September 2022, with the same lead and co-lead investors. At that stage, Kupando was focused on completing the investigational new drug-enabling work required before human trials could begin.
The additional €10 million signals that preclinical work is now sufficiently advanced to warrant the clinical investment. Kupando also appointed Jörn Aldag, a veteran biotech executive who previously guided uniQure to the first Western gene therapy regulatory approval and transformed Evotec through dual-listings on Frankfurt and NASDAQ, as chair of its board in February 2026.
“This additional funding is a testament to the potential of our innovative dual TLR agonist platform and will be instrumental in advancing KUP101 into clinical studies for solid tumors and accelerating our crucial work in infectious diseases,” said Holldack in a statement.
“Our mission is to leverage the natural resilience of the innate immune system to deliver truly transformative therapies for patients in critical need.”
The antimicrobial resistance dimension is worth noting separately. AMR, the accumulation of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials across bacterial and fungal pathogens, is projected to become one of the leading causes of death globally by mid-century, yet the commercial incentives for developing new anti-infectives remain structurally weak.
An innate immunity stimulator that enhances the body's own defences against drug-resistant organisms, rather than targeting the pathogen directly, represents a meaningfully different mechanism from conventional antibiotic approaches.
Martin Raditsch, Managing Partner of Carma Fund, said in a statement that the round “underscores the confidence we, as investors, have in Kupando's science, team, and potential to deliver impactful solutions for unmet medical needs,” describing the close as notable given what he called the current challenging financial climate.
For a company that has spent the better part of a decade in preclinical development, the transition to Phase 1b marks the point at which the science must prove itself in patients.