One universal antiviral to rule them all?

It was already invented [0], but the patents were bought by a small company in New Zealand (some kind of big pharma shell company?) who isn't seriously developing it and now appears to be defunct.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRACO

Doesn't sound all the bad from the linked wiki:

""" In March 2024 Kimer Med announced it has signed a contract valued at up to USD$750,000 (NZD$1.3 million) with Battelle Memorial Institute (Battelle), the world’s largest independent, nonprofit research and development organization. The contract is focused on the discovery and development of new antiviral drug candidates for the treatment of alphaviruses. """

The cynical part of me wonders: if this has been a promising approach for 10+ years, why weren't they able to secure VC funding years ago (or nonprofit biomedical research funding from places like the Gates Foundation that care a lot about infectious disease)?

This. Claims of a universal antiviral are as old as western medicine itself. Literally the only reason anyone knows what the Hippocratic oath is is because Hippocrates was already famous at the time for promoting elderberry as the universal antiviral.