Review Question

What will the total amount of seed funding for biotech startups in the EU, UK, and Switzerland be in 2025 and 2026 combined, according to Labiotech?

Answer Initial Probability
Less than $350 million 28%
More than or equal to $350 million but less than $500 million 45%
More than or equal to $500 million but less than $650 million 22%
More than or equal to $650 million but less than $800 million 4%
More than or equal to $800 million 1%
Author
dante
Description
This question is part of the “biotech” question series exploring biotechnology capabilities related to pandemic preparedness. See similar questions on seed funding for startups in the U.S. and around the world as well as an accompanying blog post for additional context.

Seed funding plays a crucial role in the biotech startup ecosystem, providing early-stage companies with the capital needed to develop innovative technologies and therapies. According to Labiotech, seed funding rounds for biotech startups have shown significant activity in recent years. In 2024, there were multiple seed funding rounds across various months, with amounts ranging from a few million to tens of millions of dollars per round (Labiotech 2024 funding tracker).  

The biotech sector continues to attract substantial investment across different funding stages, with seed rounds being particularly important for launching new ventures in areas such as drug discovery, gene therapies, and AI-enabled biotechnology platforms.

Resolution Criteria:
This question will be resolved using Labiotech’s biotech funding tracker. Only investments categorized as "Seed round" under "Funding type" will be counted. You can enter "Seed round" in the search box above the table to see all of the seed funding raised for biotech startups. 

Labiotech’s funding tracker for 2024 is available here, and the 2025 tracker is available here. EU, UK, and Swiss startups raised roughly $380 million in seed round funding in 2024. As of 8 August 2025, EU, UK, and Swiss startups raised $119.3 million in seed funding in 2025. This question will be updated to include a link to the 2026 funding tracker when it becomes available.

Note: RFI admins will use the funding amount given in U.S. dollars wherever possible. If funding is listed in another currency without the amount in U.S. dollars, we will use the midmarket conversion rate listed on xe.com for the day the funding was announced, if known, or on the first day of the month if not.
Starts
Aug 14, 2025 09:00PM UTC
Closes
Jan 01, 2027 05:00AM UTC
Topics
Emerging Technology
Tags
Biotech
This question has been published for forecasting.
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Comments

ctsats
made a comment:

For example, in August 2024, there were six seed rounds totaling $48 million (Labiotech, Aug 2024). In October 2024, nine seed rounds raised a total of $146 million (Labiotech, Oct 2024). 

Please see https://www.randforecastinginitiative.org/comments/191656

And if those numbers are global, and not specifically about EU, UK, and Switzerland, I think we need to clarify this explicitly in the question info.

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ctsats
made a comment:
In any case, but especially since in the resolution page the sum is not shown explicitly, some "grounding" info should be included in the question details, i.e.

As of the question opening on August X, 2025, the total amount of seed funding for biotech startups in the EU, UK, and Switzerland in 2025 was $119.3 million

(Comparing my sum with that of @PeterStamp's below, you can already see that at least one of us is mistaken...)

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dante
made a comment:
We've added this to the 2nd paragraph of the resolution criteria. $119.3 million is the number we got when calculating the total ourselves.
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PeterStamp
made a comment:
I´ve been struggling with the resolution site a little until I found out, that in order to get useful historical data, one needs to do as suggested: "enter "Seed round" in the search box above the table to see all of the seed funding raised for biotech startups. ".It´s NOT the usual search field at the top right of the page. From those you need to choose the ones for countries on the list (don´t forget page 2!). Status quo for 2025 so far is 129.3.

First impression about the bins: repeating those  $380m from 2024 for the whole year looks hard. So far we would be on track for lowest bin (extrapolation status quo / 7 * 24 = 443). 
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dante
made a comment:
Thanks for your feedback on the bins, we dropped the highest bin (on all the seed funding questions) and added another bin on the lower end to capture the possibility of a bigger slowdown. 
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Files
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