Billionaire Mike Platt backs Engitix for the second time with a $25 million series A extension

While an extension round 4 years later might seem unusual, the company’s founder, Giuseppe Mazza, explained why this funding was presented as an extension of the previous series A instead of a new round: “We are still preclinical and want the financing label to match the company’s current stage; the series B is intended to be the step-up round once we are ready to enter the clinic and pursue clinical proof-of-concept, which typically supports a larger raise. In parallel, we will be working toward that larger series B process as we progress through these milestones.”

Engitix, an unusual investment in Platt’s strategy

In 2022, Mike Platt was already firmly involved with Engitix as the $54 million series A was co-led by his fund, Netherton Investments. The 2022 round also brought in Dompé Farmaceutici as a new investor alongside a strategic collaboration that gave Engitix access to Dompé’s Exscalate drug discovery platform and computing resources. At the time, Engitix said the financing would push its internal programs toward IND-enabling studies, while expanding its ECM discovery platform and scaling the team and operations.

This new extension is again funded by Mike Platt and is pitched as fuel to keep moving Engitix’s pipeline forward in solid tumors and fibrosis, while continuing to expand what the company describes as one of the largest proprietary ECM datasets in those indications.

That continuity is notable given who Platt is. The co-founder of BlueCrest Capital Management, one of the largest private investment firms, has built a reputation as one of the most discreet and disciplined figures in global finance, rarely appearing in headlines and largely avoiding public-facing investments. Platt’s investment and management strategy has been described as highly analytical and data-driven, rather than relying on thematic bets. 

Engitix stands out as an unusual case, a preclinical biotech company he has now backed twice publicly as a lead investor. “I am prepared to take a risk and invest in innovative technology early, backing highly passionate teams with strong leadership. Having invested from the start, Engitix’s progress and achievements within less than two years from its seed financing have been impressive,” said Platt in 2022. This time, he has offered only limited comment on the investment.

And according to Mazza, Platt is quite involved in the company. “Mike is an active Board member and a valued business mentor. He helps shape our long-term strategy, stress-tests key decisions, and supports the team as we scale, while leaving day-to-day execution to management.”

Engitix’s extracellular matrix approach

The premise of Engitix’s approach is that in fibrosis and solid tumours, the extracellular matrix (ECM) is not just structural support; it is part of the disease. The company starts with human patient tissue, strips it down to the acellular ECM scaffold, and then uses proteomics and other readouts to map how the diseased ECM differs from healthy tissue. This is then fed into its bioinformatics platform, which integrates multi-omics and imaging to identify targets and biomarkers that are tied to the outcome.

“We target disease-specific changes in the extracellular matrix, which is the abnormal tissue environment that actively drives both cancer and fibrosis. In oncology, patients with desmoplastic tumours have particularly poor outcomes because the dense tumour matrix limits the effectiveness of current treatments,” said Mazza. 

Mazza explained that while many companies target cells or individual pathways within the tumour microenvironment or fibrosis biology, Engitix focuses on the extracellular matrix itself as a primary disease driver and drug target. 

“By targeting disease-specific ECM changes, we can anchor therapies directly to tumour tissue in hard-to-treat, desmoplastic cancers and aim to actively clear established scar tissue in fibrosis. This tissue-level approach allows us to address a fundamental cause of poor treatment response, rather than downstream effects,” said Mazza.

Where this differs is about what you treat as the starting point. A lot of approaches, such as immune checkpoints, still begin with cells and then ask how the matrix responds. Engitix tries to invert that by using ECM itself, in a tissue-specific and disease-specific context, to discover targets and then validate them. 

The preclinical company currently has 3 disclosed preclinical programs in its pipeline: EGTX003 in fibrosis, EGTX004 in solid tumors, and EGTX006, still at the discovery stage in advanced fibrosis. Engitix also has two confidential collaborative programs with Takeda, in advanced metabolic associated steatohepatitis (MASH) fibrosis and fibrostenotic Crohn’s disease (FSCD).

Apart from Engitix, relatively few companies have tried to build drug discovery platforms around the extracellular matrix itself. Among the more comparable early-stage efforts, Matrisome Bio is pursuing an ECM-targeted radiopharmaceutical program, while Switzerland’s Tandem Therapeutics is building targeted therapies designed to overcome the matrix barrier in fibrotic cancers and organ fibrosis. It’s fair to say there aren’t that many companies that focus primarily on the ECM, and Engitix is one of them.