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.

Private Company Edition: The average exit from biopharma investments rose from $356.8m in 2019 to $520.6m in 2020, explaining the staggering $12bn invested in the industry during the first half of this year versus $17bn for all of last year. In recent VC deals, VelosBio’s $137m series B was the largest.