Nucleate Michigan’s Post

We are happy to announce that Angel Investors of STAN invested in Denovo Sciences for the second time, marking our 23rd deal. Denovo Sciences is a deep technology company that creates novel therapeutics using state-of-the-art AI technologies. The startup applies Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to address complex challenges in drug discovery. Denovo Sciences was developed as part of the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST) Advanced Solutions Center (ASCENT) program. It was a venture builder program where researchers and scientists collaborated on in-depth idea exploration, followed by comprehensive feasibility studies, proof of concept, and later prototype development. Following the ASCENT program, Denovo Sciences has successfully raised pre-seed and seed funding, gaining the trust of investors from Armenia and abroad, including support from Berkeley SkyDeck, Granatus Ventures, Triple S Ventures, SASTIC, EU institutions, and others. The startup has published 8 peer-reviewed articles, contributing innovative findings in the field of drug discovery. In addition to its scientific contributions, Denovo has formed partnerships with leading companies in the biotech sector from the US, UK, Singapore, and Switzerland, accelerating research and drug development. We are excited to continue the support making the second investment and be part of their journey since the early days. Congratulations to Denovo Sciences and STAN Angel Investors on this partnership! #STAN #DenovoSciences #investmentnews #Armeniansartupecosystem #deeptech

There's been a lot of online discussion as to why Illumina chose to buy Fluent BioSciences Inc. out of the half dozen similar early stage competitors in the space. The focus of the discussion has been on assay performance but I'm drawn to Fluent's clearest differentiator from its competitors - it's the only one that was an Illumina Ventures investment - what a coincidence 😳 From its founding in 2016 Illumina Ventures (IV) has loudly proclaimed its "independence" from Illumina. But as John Stewart joked the about the Wuhan Institute of Virology "The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird!” And it's not just the name of course: founding partner was an Illumina SVP, and oh yeah Illumina put in maybe half of the $560M funding. Independent my ass 🤣 IMO Illumina shouldn't be buying Illumina Venture investments; it's a situation rife with conflicts of interest as witnessed by GRAIL where Illumina was also buying its own investment. And why poke the FTC? 🤯 Illumina Ventures Exits (you can see why they may want help 🥲):

Rob Weisman from the Boston Globe reports, "Last year, nearly 60 percent of venture capital for Massachusetts life sciences companies was deployed to companies outside Cambridge, the highest share since 2019, when the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council began tracking that metric, according to a report the council released this month. That increased from 51 percent outside Cambridge in 2022 to 42 percent in 2021. The new clusters are already having a broad impact on communities outside the traditional biotech hub, bringing jobs, tax revenue, and a cutting-edge vibe but also more traffic and pressure on real estate costs. Venture dollars stayed largely within Eastern Massachusetts last year, but moves are afoot to accelerate the industry’s expansion to cities and towns in the state where space is more plentiful. “We need the scale, in terms of space, that isn’t ideally suited for Cambridge,” said David Hallal, chief executive of ElevateBio, which outfitted a 300,000-square-foot facility to make cell and gene therapies near the intersection of Routes 2 and 128 in Waltham. Six-year-old Elevate, which has about 300 employees in Massachusetts, reeled in the state’s largest venture capital round in 2023. It raised just over $400 million to expand capacity at its “genetic medicines foundry,” a contract manufacturing plant that supports more than 20 drug makers. Other large venture outlays went to biotech startups such as Cardurion Pharma in Burlington ($300 million), Aiolos Bio in Boston’s Back Bay ($245 million), MapLight Therapeutics in Burlington ($225 million), Upstream Bio in Waltham ($200 million), and Abcuro in Newton ($155 million). Mariana Oncology ($174 million) is one of several early-stage drug developers that leased space at 100 Forge, a nine-story glass tower that opened in 2022 behind the Arsenal Yards development in Watertown." See the link below for the full article. #biotechnology #biotech #biotechnologie #lifesciences #science #research #biotechnews https://lnkd.in/exPy7mYv

We are thrilled for Rutgers research team Nervana Therapeutics to be part of the inaugural Venturium Virtual Showcase, where they will present the technology they developed at Rutgers to an audience of venture capital investors, venture studios, accelerators, incubators, industry partners, and entrepreneurs. Nervana Therapeutics' technology is a cellularized nerve regeneration graft (CNRG) that will speed patient recovery from peripheral nerve injury, improve recovery of sensation and motor function, reduce the need for extra surgeries, and decrease lifetime medical and socioeconomic costs of new and poorly-recovered injuries. Venturium 2024, co-sponsored by Rutgers Research, is a curated showcase highlighting spinouts and technologies from members of the Tech Transfer Venture Consortium (TTVC), including Rutgers and fellow co-sponsors Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, Innovate Carolina, Northeastern University Center for Research Innovation (CRI), and PCI Ventures. This event embodies a movement towards collaborative growth, technological advancement, and revolutionizing access to academic venture opportunities.   #RutgersInnovation #RutgersResearch #venturium24 #techtransfer #techinnovation #techventures #ventureforward #cofounderconnection #collaborativegrowth

Swedish startup’s $26 million Series A funding marks a turning point in cellular communication mapping Moleculent, a Stockholm-based company focused on advancing the spatial mapping of cell-cell communication, has secured a significant milestone with the closing of its oversubscribed $26 million Series A financing round. This round was co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and Eir Ventures, with participation from existing investors. The funding will support Moleculent’s innovative functional biology platform, which enables the detection and profiling of cell-cell interactions directly within tissue environments. Moleculent announced key appointments to its leadership team. Patrick A. Weiss from ARCH Venture Partners has been appointed Chairman of the Board, while Sean Kendall from ARCH and Magnus Persson from Eir Ventures have joined the company’s Board of Directors. https://lnkd.in/d6v87T7R #nordicmade #sweden #funding #deeptech #lifesciences #biotech #healthtech #startups #trending

Where do most early stage biotech startups fail? They fall victim to the drug discovery valley of death. This is most associated with translational science; translating preclinical findings to clinically relevant physiology. The issue is most early stage founders have never had to think about translational science and clinical development. They don't know how to plan early studies to support this and don't consider the financial resources necessary to make it beyond these hurdles and into the clinic. Here's what you do. Create a really strong founding team, early team of leaders and/or group of advisors. If you look at what VC is most likely to fund, the team or the idea, it's the team. Surround your great idea with even better people!

Following a nice summer break, are you wondering what are the latest opportunities for life sciences companies? Well, you're in luck, here is some homework for you on back to school day. 😎 📚 SICTIC Investor Day FONGIT Apply before 29 August, for a chance to pitch at the 131st SICTIC Investor Day, and seize the opportunity to connect with angel investors. https://lnkd.in/e9NTkpBX 📚 Innovation Booster Silver Aging Submit your idea before 6 September to get up to CHF 25'000 in funding. This programme aims to promote and facilitate innovation that could improve the quality of life of seniors. https://lnkd.in/eDDZ27c2 📚 CSEM Challenge Digital Journey Submit your most innovative idea for digitalising your operations and you could win up to CHF 100’000 worth of cutting-edge digital technology development and transfer time. https://lnkd.in/epN7SzP3 📚 FONGIT Innovation Fund (FIF) Apply before 15 September to get up to CHF 400'000 in funding. The FIF aims to accelerate innovation in Geneva-based research institutions and universities, as well as within startups, scale ups, and SMEs. https://lnkd.in/eC2zbgpM Looking for more opportunities ? ➡️ https://lnkd.in/ebXVgx7i Innosuisse,Haute Ecole Arc Santé,Daniel Céfaï,James Miners #lifesciences #innovation #opportunities #call

🚀 Launching Our UC Foundry Fellowship Program! 🚀 Join the inaugural cohort of our pre-accelerator and build the next generation of disruptive biotechs with us at UC San Diego. We believe that disruptive biotechs transcend boundaries: they can be built anywhere, by anyone, and in any corner of the economy - from AI in biotech to sustainable biomaterials. We want to find and be a home to these new ventures. We partner with founders around the world, across life science and digital health applications, and at various stages, primarily before success is obvious. Our mission is simple: back big ideas in big markets with the team who can win. We measure our success not merely by helping founders build towards exceptional exits, but by the impact we create through our mission-driven Fellowship programs. 🌟 Why UC Foundry Fellowship? ▶ Meet Co-founders and validate venture-scale problems. ▶ Close $250K in funding - we’ll coach, you play. ▶ Leverage our unfair advantages: world-class R&D labs and office workspaces, university resources, key opinion leaders, and strategic partners. 📅 Early Application Deadline: February 12th, 5pm Pacific Time 🔗 Apply Now: https://lnkd.in/gKuYjZJS 👥 Tag a friend who should apply or share this post to spread the word! #UCFoundry #BiotechAccelerator #Innovation #UCSD #HomeLab

This video is just a peek into the extraordinary hard work that has been put in over the past few months from everyone involved - especially by the 11 companies who completed the Founders at the University of Cambridge Start 1.0 Accelerator Programme. We're so proud of this initiative, and we can't wait to see where it takes our founders, and us, next. #Innovation #Founders #UniversityOfCambridge #Investors #DemoDay

bio.xyz started as an accelerator for biotech DAOs - communities of scientists, patients and biotech entrepreneurs organized around a scientific mission. Our incubated biotech DAOs have: 🔬 Deployed $15M into tokenized science 📝 Filed healthcare's first DAO patent 💰 Attracted funding from Pfizer ventures 🧬 Backed a project that raised $40M from Khosla Ventures Having incubated 8 biotech DAOs, bio.xyz is now spinning out into the BIO protocol. The plan is to leverage DeFi & crypto-economics to accelerate our growing network of biotech DAOs, and build the ultimate de-risking engine for early-stage science. Watch 👨🏻🔬James Sinka 🍊 (R&D at bio.xyz & Y Combinator alum) discuss the evolving bioDAO model at DeSciBerlin