Avenue Biosciences Raises $5.7 million to Scale the First Platform Modulating the Secretory Pathway for Enhanced Therapeutic Protein Manufacturing

Avenue Biosciences, the protein engineering platform enhancing production yield and the quality of your end product, led by Tero-Pekka Alastalo, Katja Rosti, Veli-Pekka Jaakola, Juulia Simonen, and Anton Klavus, has secured $5.7M in seed extension funding round co-led by Balnord and Tesi, with support from existing investors Voima Ventures, Inventure, University of Helsinki, and Dimerent, to scale a high-throughput protein engineering technology that accelerates the discovery of protein-based therapies and tools for the biotechnology industry.

The technology leverages a library of thousands of naturally occurring and engineered signal peptides to measure and optimize protein biogenesis within the secretory pathway, the cellular machinery that folds, modifies, and secretes therapeutic proteins.

“The secretory pathway remains one of the last black boxes in therapeutic protein production,” said Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and Co-founder of Avenue Biosciences. “Instead of relying on a decades-old playbook that tests only a handful of safe signal peptides, our platform screens thousands of sequence variants to make increasingly complex proteins, including AI-designed molecules and multispecifics, more manufacturable. This expands access to lifesaving therapies.”

Signal peptides, intrinsic to every protein, represent a largely untapped lever in biotechnology, directly influencing production efficiency and quality at the cellular level.

“Modern biologics are becoming multifunctional and highly complex, but that same complexity makes them difficult and expensive to manufacture,” said Katja Rosti, COO and Co-founder. Because signal peptides are removed from the final protein, Avenue’s approach keeps the therapeutic unchanged, a major advantage for both novel biologics and biosimilars.

The platform generates industry-first datasets linking specific signal peptides to specific protein targets, unlocking new efficiency and manufacturability in advanced therapeutics.

Avenue’s platform is positioned at one of biotechnology’s largest opportunities: reducing the cost and complexity of biologic manufacturing through AI-driven signal-peptide optimization. Investors highlight the company’s strong execution, rapidly expanding customer base, and unique combination of wet-lab automation and machine-learning capabilities.

Backers also point to the broader impact: many advanced therapies remain inaccessible globally due to high production costs, and Avenue’s technology, rooted in Finnish scientific research, has the potential to become a manufacturing standard. With this round, total funding since 2024 reaches $8.7M, building on discoveries originating from the University of Helsinki and the Ville Paavilainen laboratory.