smartbax, a Munich-based BioTech company developing next-generation antibiotics against multi-drug resistant bacteria, today announced the successful first closing of its €4.7 million pre-Series A financing round.
The round was led by new investors Anobis Asset and Bayern Kapital, with participation from UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators as well as existing investors HTGF – High-Tech Gründerfonds and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF). A second closing of the round remains open to investors.
“Small-molecule antibiotics remain one of the most effective tools in combating the rapidly growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. smartbax is currently the only German BioTech dedicated exclusively to developing these crucial tools, and we are proud to advance complementary approaches with both a classical inhibitor against a novel target and enzyme activators with a truly novel mode of action in the antibiotic realm,” said Dr Robert Macsics, CEO of smartbax.
This pre-Series A positions smartbax among a growing group of European companies tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
In 2025, EU-Startups has reported several notable rounds in the field, including SNIPR Biome in Denmark, which secured €35 million in Series B funding to advance CRISPR-based anti-infection therapies, and Phagos in France, which raised €25 million in Series A to develop bacteriophage-based treatments.
These examples illustrate sustained investor interest in diverse AMR approaches across Europe. While many peers focus on gene or phage therapies, smartbax’s work on small-molecule antibiotics offers a complementary route within this innovation landscape.
“Our programs focus on WHO priority pathogens and aim to provide new treatment options for critically ill patients who currently have limited alternatives. We are delighted to have assembled such a strong consortium of investors who share our commitment to addressing this urgent public health threat,” added Dr Macsics.
Founded in 2021 as a spin-off of the Technical University Munich (TUM), smartbax is developing a new generation of antibiotics to address the increasing spread of multi-drug resistant bacteria.
Their team is advancing a complementary pipeline of small molecules against novel bacterial targets and with innovative modes of action to prevent resistance.
Their lead programme is a new inhibitor of lipopolysaccharide synthesis in Gram-negative bacteria. Moreover, the company specialises in the tailored activation of enzymatic pathways that trigger bacterial self-digestion, as this approach is particularly promising in the context of difficult-to-treat biofilms.
Two activators are in development, targeting both Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria individually.
Martin Falk, managing director at Anobis Asset, said: “Antibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent medical challenges of our time, and there is a clear need for new therapeutic approaches. In Germany alone, nearly 10,000 people die each year as a direct consequence of infections with multi-drug resistant bacteria; many more are hospitalized and often face lengthy recovery times.
“We are proud to support a team focused on developing solutions that could help patients and protect public health worldwide.”
smartbax will use the funds to progress its proprietary pipeline of small-molecule antibiotics designed to overcome bacterial resistance with innovative approaches and novel mechanisms of action.
The lead candidate is an inhibitor that blocks a previously unexplored step in the synthesis of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), key structural components of the outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria. This new inhibitor has already demonstrated in vivo proof of concept, including activity against multi-drug resistant strains, shows potential as an orally available drug, and will now be advanced through preclinical development.
Monika Steger, Managing Partner at Bayern Kapital, commented: “Rising bacterial resistance to antibiotics poses an enormous burden on global healthcare. smartbax is tackling this problem with two novel drug approaches that are already showing great potential at their current stage. At the same time, the market for new antibiotics is opening up a highly attractive growth area with great economic opportunities. Our investment in smartbax is therefore a promising investment in the local BioTech ecosystem and the resilience of our healthcare system.”
In parallel, smartbax is advancing its platform of small-molecule activators of bacterial hydrolases. Rather than inhibiting bacterial functions like traditional antibiotics, these compounds stimulate hydrolase activity, causing bacteria to digest themselves from within.
According to the company, this innovative mode of action has not been exploited in commercial antibiotics to date and offers a promising strategy to overcome established resistance mechanisms.
smartbax has identified two activator classes effective against different targets in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, both of which display encouraging drug-like properties, are able to eliminate biofilms and show no development of resistance.
The company will further develop these candidates toward lead selection and in vivo proof of concept using the current funds.
Inga vom Holtz, Director Investments at UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, added: “smartbax has grown from academic research into a BioTech company with a clear focus on antibiotic innovation. We are pleased to join this financing round and to support a team that is advancing both classical inhibitors and entirely new antibacterial mechanisms with enzyme activators, and we are proud that such innovation has its origins at the Technical University Munich.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/10/smartbax-secures-e4-7-million-as-germany-confronts-10000-deaths-a-year-from-drug-resistant-infections/
