Microbiotica Raises £36M for Microbiome Medicine

Microbiotica has raised the first close of a £36 million Series C to test whether a precisely designed community of gut bacteria can become a repeatable medicine for ulcerative colitis.

What happened

The round was led by the British Business Bank, with participation from Tencent, IP Group, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Flerie Invest and Seventure Partners. Because the announcement is a first close, £36 million may not be the final size of the Series C.

The Cambridge-based company will use the funding to move MB310 into Phase II development. MB310 is a once-daily oral live-biotherapeutic product containing a defined consortium of bacterial strains selected using Microbiotica's discovery platform.

Rather than offering a broad probiotic mixture, the company is trying to identify specific microbiome signatures linked to disease and translate them into controlled therapeutic combinations.

Why it matters

The microbiome has attracted years of scientific attention, but turning correlations between gut bacteria and health into medicines has proved difficult. Human microbiomes vary widely, biological mechanisms can be hard to isolate, and promising early findings do not always translate into consistent clinical outcomes.

A Phase II study will therefore be an important test of whether Microbiotica's data-led approach can produce a therapy with measurable benefits for patients, not simply an interesting biological signal.

The bigger picture

The financing reflects a more disciplined phase for microbiome therapeutics. Investors are increasingly looking for defined products, clear mechanisms and clinical evidence rather than broad claims about gut health. If MB310 succeeds, it could strengthen the case for microbiome platforms as a genuine drug-development category.