Participated · Series A · May 2025

HAYA Therapeutics develops programmable, RNA-guided therapies that target regulatory long non-coding RNAs to reprogram pathological cell states. Its core product approach maps and decodes the regulatory genome using multimodal functional genomics and proprietary computational and machine-learning methods. The company’s lead candidate, HTX-001, is a first-in-class lncRNA-targeting therapy in development for heart failure, initially focused on non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (nHCM). HAYA plans to initiate clinical trials for HTX-001 and to expand its pipeline across pulmonary fibrosis, obesity and other age-related and chronic diseases. The company has also formed strategic collaborations, including a partnership with Eli Lilly focused on RNA-based targets for obesity and metabolic disorders. HAYA is headquartered at the Biopôle life sciences park in Lausanne, Switzerland, with laboratory facilities in San Diego. HAYA Therapeutics develops programmable RNA-guided regulatory genome targeting therapeutics that act on long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to reprogram pathological cell states. Its lead candidate, HTX-001, is in development for the treatment of heart failure, and the company is advancing a pipeline of lncRNA-targeting precision therapies for other tissues and indications. HAYA positions its platform to address rare, common, chronic and age-associated diseases and is extending its work into oncology. The company received an Innosuisse Certificate for Sustainable Growth and 1.5M CHF (approximately $1.64M USD) in non-dilutive funding to support translational studies over the next two years. Those funds will be used to develop a therapy targeting cancer-associated fibroblast-specific lncRNA for aggressive solid tumors. HAYA is headquartered at Biopôle in Lausanne, Switzerland, and maintains laboratory facilities at JLABS @ San Diego. HAYA Therapeutics develops a proprietary regulatory genome discovery platform that identifies tissue-, disease- and cell-specific long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) targets and enables RNA-targeting therapies. The platform is positioned to reprogram disease-driving cell states with the aim of delivering therapies that may have better efficacy and less toxicity than current treatments. HAYA is applying this full-stack platform to discovery and validation of lncRNA targets for obesity and related metabolic disorders. Under a multi-year collaboration with Eli Lilly, the partners will identify, characterize, and validate multiple regulatory genome-derived RNA-based drug targets. The company will receive an upfront payment that includes an equity investment and stands to earn milestone payments and royalties if programs progress. HAYA’s immediate plans center on preclinical drug discovery work within the collaboration to generate candidate targets and advance them toward development. HAYA Therapeutics is a Biopôle-based Swiss startup developing precision medicines and lncRNA-targeting anti-fibrotics using its proprietary DiscoverHAYA drug discovery engine. The company has established a new laboratory at JLABS @ San Diego while maintaining its main headquarters and laboratory facilities in Lausanne. HAYA will use the new funding to grow its team in Switzerland and San Diego and to advance its lead therapeutic candidate that targets a driver of cardiac fibrosis. The lead therapy is being developed to treat non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an orphan indication with limited treatment options. Financially, HAYA closed a $5 million seed extension that brings the total seed financing to approximately $25 million. HAYA Therapeutics develops precision genomic medicines that target tissue- and cell-specific long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) to prevent and reverse fibrosis and other age-related conditions. Its proprietary DiscoverHAYA™ drug discovery engine generates a pipeline of lncRNA-targeting anti-fibrotics for organs including heart, lung, kidney, liver and the tumor microenvironment. The lead program is an antisense oligonucleotide targeting the cardiac-enriched lncRNA Wisper, which in preclinical studies at Lausanne University Hospital demonstrated the ability to halt and potentially reverse cardiac fibrosis. HAYA secured an exclusive license from CHUV for the Wisper asset and is preparing to initiate clinical trials in non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The company is headquartered at the Biopôle life sciences park in Lausanne, Switzerland and is led by a team of lncRNA and fibrosis experts. The CHF 18 million seed financing will be used to advance discovery and development of its organ- and cell-selective therapeutic programs.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2022

Foodetective offers a unified commerce infrastructure and single operating system that lets restaurants and merchants integrate, manage, and automate their entire tech stack and operations. Launched in 2019 and co-founded by Andrea Tassistro and Edouard Thimon, the company is headquartered in Geneva, Paris and Madrid. Merchants connect systems through a click-and-connect Integration Hub with over 250 integrations, centralizing data on an analytics dashboard to manage reviews, orders, reservations, suppliers, stocks, marketing and more. The platform provides an interface and API designed to grow online revenues, simplify administration, and accelerate new business opportunities. Foodetective raised $5.5M in Seed funding to further develop its technology and IT team and to begin implementing machine learning algorithms for intelligent push notifications and actions. Planned Intelligence features include personalized data-based notifications, direct access to partner integrations and offers, competitive market analysis, regulatory updates, and actionable on-the-go insights to reduce inefficiencies and improve processes. Foodetective provides a SaaS marketplace and multi-channel commerce platform designed for large and small restaurants and other food and beverage services. The platform enables restaurants to manage, integrate and aggregate apps into a single interface and offers each client a tailor-made dashboard based on their tech stack and needs. It integrates services from 300+ vendor partners and POS providers such as Square, Uber Eats, Stripe and Orkestro, and hundreds of wholesalers including Nestlé and other leading FMCG companies. More than 17,500 food and beverage businesses use the Foodetective platform, including Shiso Burger in Geneva, Neko Ramen in Paris, and Tommy’s Burgers in London. Led by founder and CEO Andrea Tassistro, the company intends to use new funding to launch its API. The company is based in Geneva, Switzerland and Paris, France.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2022

CYSEC develops confidential computing software, notably ARCA Trusted OS, an operating system that protects sensitive data at runtime. The company serves sectors including financial services, critical infrastructure (IoT) and the space industry. It positions its products for NewSpace use cases and has experience with cloud and edge computing on board satellites. CYSEC has entered partnerships with key industry actors and has received European Space Agency support since 2020 for strategic projects. An early version of its edge computing was embedded on a SpaceX rocket in January 2022 for in-space testing. The company recently raised additional funding to accelerate deployment in the space sector and to expand sales and engineering headcount. CYSEC develops ARCA, a hardware-based trusted execution environment (TEE) that secures sensitive data and workloads with full-stack protection from hardware to kernel to application. ARCA is designed to protect data on premise, in the cloud and at the edge. The company is focusing on Digital Assets/DeFi and Edge Computing — including Space — where protection of data in use is increasingly demanded. CYSEC closed a CHF4 million seed extension that brought total company funding to CHF7 million. The additional financing is intended to support the company’s growth in its target European markets. CYSEC also plans to open new offices in Paris in 2022 and advance collaboration with the European Space Agency to reinforce its presence in Europe. CYSEC has developed ARCA, a versatile and highly scalable security solution that stores sensitive data and runs critical software in a trusted environment to simplify deployment of secure applications. ARCA integrates certified security hardware and provides key management, encryption/decryption, digital signatures and strong authentication using modern cryptographic algorithms. The product is designed to be easy to install, cost-effective and flexible to adapt to changing security and business requirements. CYSEC has formed industry partnerships with METACO, Astrocast, Geosatis and Build38 and won a contract with the European Space Agency to protect ship-tracking communications. The company holds registered patents and participates in academic and industrial programs including Innosuisse, EUREKA/EUROSTARS and H2020, and was selected for the ESA BIC incubation programme; it has also won IMD and ITU innovation awards. Management is led by Patrick Trinkler (CEO), Yacine Felk (COO) and Alexandre Karlov (CTO); the company recently received new financing in the form of a FIT loan to support growth.

Participated · Series C · Sep 2020

keepMed designs and develops keePAP, a hoseless, wearable, responsive and personalized positive airway pressure device that delivers PAP intermittently with minimal airflow by mobilizing the user’s respiratory system. Unlike traditional PAP devices that deliver continuous high-flow air, keePAP provides on-demand pressure only as needed. The company completed CE certification and finished a first-in-human study at the end of 2019. keepMed plans to use proceeds from its recent financing to advance clinical development toward FDA clearance and a market launch in the USA and Europe. The device targets treatment of Obstructive Sleep Apnea, a widespread disorder associated with increased cardiovascular and metabolic risk and major quality-of-life impacts. keepMed is based in Israel and emphasizes a minimally invasive, patient-friendly alternative to conventional PAP therapy. Ninox Medical, founded in 2012 and based in Lyon, France, develops and commercializes a device to treat obstructive sleep apnea. Its core product, the KeePAP™ device, is a small wearable Automatic Positive Airway Pressure (APAP) system that does not require the air blower or mask used in existing solutions. The company is led by CEO Alex Rapoport. Ninox recently completed a $10M Series B financing to support its next growth phase. The funds are earmarked to scale operations, further develop KeePAP™ to obtain CE Mark and 510(k) approvals, reinforce management and technical teams, and build infrastructure for larger clinical trials and commercialization.