With only one employee, it raised 540 million in financing.

What is the minimum team size for a startup to secure hundreds of millions in financing? Actithera from Norway has provided an answer: just one employee is enough.

Recently, Actithera, a radiopharmaceutical biotechnology company, announced the successful completion of an oversubscribed Series A financing round, raising $75.5 million, equivalent to approximately 540 million RMB.

The lineup of investors in this financing round is truly impressive. The lead investors include M Ventures, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Merck, as well as European veteran venture capital firms such as Sofinnova Partners, Hadean Ventures, and 4BIO Capital. In addition, various European venture capital firms like Bioqube Ventures, Innovestor's Life Science Fund, Investinor, and Surveyor Capital, along with the Arkin Bio Ventures II fund managed by well - known Israeli venture capital firm Arkin Holdings, also participated in this round of investment.

Actithera was founded in 2021, with its headquarters in Oslo, Norway, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. It mainly develops monoclonal antibody - based radiopharmaceuticals for the treatment of tumors and other refractory diseases. Notably, after four years of establishment, the company has only one employee, its founder Andreas Goutopoulos.

This situation seems a bit surreal. Although early - stage investment is essentially about investing in "people," for a company that has reached the Series A stage and needs product validation, a relatively complete team structure is usually required. Behind this contrast, there is probably only one explanation - the market segment is hot enough, and the founder is capable enough, which has indirectly raised the threshold for investment.

In addition, an investor told China Venture Capital that against the backdrop of emphasizing industrial ecosystem collaboration and the explosion of AI technology, this kind of "small - team" startup model will eventually become an inevitable trend under systematic change.

A Nuclear Medicine Expert's Startup: One Person Runs a Company

Before introducing this company, let's briefly explain what "nuclear medicine drugs" are.

So - called nuclear medicine drugs, also known as "radiopharmaceuticals," are a class of compounds labeled with radionuclides. Their core feature is the ability to dynamically monitor or target - treat physiological and biochemical processes in the human body through the decay characteristics of radionuclides (such as emitting gamma rays or positrons), and they are widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of tumors.

Actithera's founder, Goutopoulos, is a senior expert in the field of nuclear medicine drugs, with over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He previously worked as a medicinal chemist at EMD Serono, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Merck, for 17 years.

In 2008, Goutopoulos transferred to Merck's venture capital department, M Ventures, as an "entrepreneur - in - residence." This is an initiative by Merck to encourage internal innovation, allowing experts to incubate startups within the company. It was during this period that Pluvicto, a prostate cancer nuclear medicine drug developed by another pharmaceutical giant Novartis, made breakthrough progress in Phase III clinical trials, attracting wide market attention. This event further ignited Goutopoulos' entrepreneurial passion.

A key characteristic of Pluvicto is its "fast - in, slow - out" property: it is quickly cleared from the blood but stays in the tumor for a long time, which further ensures the efficacy and safety of treatment. However, Goutopoulos found that this characteristic was difficult to replicate in other targets. He believed that to solve this problem, one must start from the chemical structure - using "covalent binding" to enhance the retention time of the drug in the tumor.

So in 2021, with the support of M Ventures and Arkin Bio Ventures II, Goutopoulos founded Actithera and pioneered a chemically - driven precision RLT method. Public information shows that Actithera received a $22 million financing round at its inception, but the specific investment institutions were not disclosed.

After receiving financial support from investors, Goutopoulos did not rush to expand the team but instead allocated resources and energy to product and technology R & D.

As of now, Actithera has disclosed four projects in its pipeline, including one targeting FAP and three other undisclosed targets. The drug types include small molecules and peptides.

Among them, ACT017, a covalent nuclear medicine drug targeting FAP, is the company's core pipeline. Pre - clinical data shows that ACT017 can reduce tumor volume by over 80% in a gastric cancer model and causes less damage to normal tissues. It is reported that the company plans to initiate Phase I/II clinical trials for ACT017 in 2025 and will later expand to other solid tumors such as pancreatic cancer.

In summary, Actithera's uniqueness mainly lies in two aspects. First, the founder has rich experience in the field of nuclear medicine drugs and has the backing of Merck and M Ventures. Second, the company's pioneering chemically - driven precision RLT method has solved current treatment problems and achieved technological breakthroughs. This has enabled this startup to be pursued by many well - known venture capital firms and industrial investors even with only one employee.

Annual Financing Exceeds $12 Billion: "Nuclear Medicine Drugs" Are on the Rise

If we expand our view to the entire industry, it is not difficult to find that the nuclear medicine drug market segment where Actithera operates has become a blue ocean.

According to MEDraysintell, the global nuclear medicine drug market was worth approximately $7 billion in 2022, and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 18% from 2022 to 2028, reaching about $18.7 billion.

The capital market's attention to nuclear medicine drugs is also gradually increasing. According to industry data, the total global financing for nuclear medicine drugs exceeded $12 billion in 2024, a three - fold increase compared to 2020. In the first half of 2025, the total global financing in the nuclear medicine drug field has exceeded $6 billion, a 45% increase compared to the same period last year, reaching an all - time high.

Looking at the domestic market, as early as 2023, Chinese VC firms began to focus on the nuclear medicine drug market. According to incomplete statistics, 17 nuclear medicine drug companies received financing that year, with the total financing amount exceeding $1.3 billion. Among them, Xiantong Medicine completed a Series E financing round of over 1.1 billion RMB in July 2023. The investors included state - owned venture capital firms, industrial capital, and well - known financial investment institutions such as SDIC Venture Capital, China Structural Reform Fund, CITIC Jingshi, Wuxi Venture Capital, Guangdong Science and Technology Investment Group, Jiangen Capital, and Qingshi Capital. This financing also set a new record for the highest single - round financing in the domestic nuclear medicine drug industry at that time.

In the same year, another nuclear medicine drug company, Hexin Medicine, also received a Series A financing round of over 100 million RMB led by Tongchuang Weiye and Shanlan Capital. In July 2025, 177Lu - HX02 injection, the world's first dual - target therapeutic nuclear medicine drug developed by Hexin Medicine, was officially approved for clinical trials, which is regarded as a milestone event in the Chinese nuclear medicine drug field. Almost at the same time, the company received a strategic investment from China National Nuclear Corporation Fund.

Liu Wei (a pseudonym), an investor focusing on the nuclear medicine drug field, told China Venture Capital that the reason why nuclear medicine drugs have received extensive attention from the capital market in recent years mainly lies in two aspects:

Firstly, it is driven by market demand. Currently, the global cancer incidence rate continues to rise. As a core tool for early cancer diagnosis and treatment efficacy evaluation, the demand for nuclear medicine drugs is strong. Meanwhile, with the intensification of the aging population, the early diagnosis of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, as well as coronary heart disease, relies on nuclear medicine drugs, and this type of demand is growing clearly.

Secondly, there is policy support. Previously, China included nuclear medicine in the key development areas of the "14th Five - Year Plan for the Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry," encouraging the innovation and R & D of radiopharmaceuticals. Some nuclear medicine drugs have been included in the medical insurance system, reducing the burden on patients.

However, he also emphasized that high technical barriers, production and logistics limitations, and an average R & D cycle of 8 - 10 years are all challenges and risks that institutions face when investing in nuclear medicine drugs.

The "Small - Team" Startup Model Is an Inevitable Trend

Finally, let's talk about the topic of startup models.

The reason why Actithera's current financing round has attracted wide market attention is not only because of the promising prospects of the industry it operates in and the impressive lineup of investors but also because of its unique startup model - one person represents the whole company.

"Actithera has actually leveraged the resources and ecological advantages of Merck and M Ventures to operate with ease. In today's context of emphasizing the construction of industrial ecosystems, small - team or even solo operation will become an inevitable trend in the future," said the above - mentioned investor.

A simple search reveals that there are indeed many similar cases. For example, Callidus Biopharma, a US - based company engaged in the R & D of drugs for rare diseases, had only 2.5 employees at its inception - two scientists and a part - time accountant. By leveraging WuXi AppTec's biopharmaceutical R & D platform, Callidus Biopharma quickly launched multiple research projects and was eventually acquired by Amicus Therapeutics, a company focusing on the treatment of rare diseases, for $130 million.

Of course, the continuous development of AI will also boost this "minimalist model."

Take Gumloop, which received $17 million in Series A financing at the beginning of this year, as an example. It is a no - code platform for beginners in programming, and its clients include medium - and large - sized companies such as Instacart, Webflow, Rippling, and Samsara.

According to media reports, currently, only the two founders of the company work full - time, and many of the company's operations are completed through AI agents. Its founder Max Brodeur - Urbas believes that the company's team size will not exceed 10 in the future, and their goal is to build a company valued at $1 billion with just 10 people.

It is foreseeable that more minimalist teams like Actithera and Gumloop will emerge in the future startup market. However, blindly pursuing a small team is by no means a shortcut to startup success. The key lies in whether a company has its own unique technological moat and ecological collaboration ability. The future winners will be those "hybrid entrepreneurs" who use AI to amplify human creativity and know when to introduce external ecological forces.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China Venture Capital," written by Wang Manhua and published by 36Kr with permission.