Avrobio is facing up to the reality of investor skepticism about gene therapy platforms and business models – but can it find a buyer or merger partner to start again?

Private Company Edition: Vertex Ventures (not Vertex Pharmaceuticals) closed its third fund, with $200m for life science and medical technologies, while Chugai’s $200m corporate VC fund will invest in drug discovery start-ups. Also, K36 closed a $70m series B round and Attovia launched with $60m.

Private Company Edition: Two companies raised multiple hundreds of millions of dollars each helping to keep the number of $100m-plus venture capital mega-rounds on the rise in May. Also, Ascend raised $132.5m to make gene and cell therapies, and Nido emerged with $109m for neurological diseases.

Public Company Edition: ImmunoGen received the first $75m under a $175m term loan, while Protagonist raised $100m in a follow-on offering, but companies with bankruptcy filings and job cuts outpaced those accessing new capital by a wide margin in late March and early April.