Participated · Seed · Jul 2025

ASTRA Therapeutics, founded in 2022 and based at the Park InnovAARE campus in Villigen, develops novel parasiticides for veterinary use. Using its proprietary ParaX platform the company generates species-specific, tubulin-targeting drug leads called Parabulins that inhibit parasite cell division while sparing hosts. Its pipeline includes more than 15 patentable chemical classes and nanomolar-potent candidates against parasites such as coccidia in farm animals and heartworm in dogs and cats. ASTRA positions its products as resistance-breaking to address an €8.4 billion global parasiticide market facing patent expiries and rising drug resistance. The company cites target annual revenues of over €680 million for coccidiosis and €2 billion for worm control in the veterinary sector. ASTRA is led by co-CEOs and founders Natacha Gaillard and Ashwani Sharma and recently closed a €8.3 million Seed financing to advance its pipeline.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2021

Ankyra Therapeutics develops cancer therapies using tumor-localized immune potentiating agents to boost anti-tumor immune responses. The company’s platform forms an extended drug depot after intratumoral administration to expand the therapeutic window of cytokine drugs, prolong immune activation, and reduce systemic toxicity. Its lead molecule, ANK-101, is being progressed through IND enabling studies and into planned Phase 1 clinical trials. Proceeds from the recent Series B will also support advancement of additional cytokine programs. Ankyra appointed Howard L. Kaufman, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer to support clinical development efforts. The company was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

Participated · Equity · Jul 2021

Orbit Discovery is a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Oxford that focuses on discovering candidate peptide therapeutics using proprietary bead‑based and microfluidic affinity and cell‑based functional screening platforms. Its platform enables high‑throughput screening of peptide libraries for both target binding and subsequent activity in cell‑based functional assays, making it applicable to soluble proteins and membrane‑bound targets such as GPCRs. The technology interrogates the activity of each library member against single cells, allowing identification of functional molecules with potential agonistic or antagonist properties. These functional leads can serve as starting points for development of peptides, small molecules, other therapeutics, or bioconjugates for targeted delivery. The company offers peptide discovery services to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry and intends to use new financing to accelerate that commercial growth. Management states the proceeds will position Orbit as a market leader in peptide discovery as it seeks to develop future therapies. Orbit Discovery develops a proprietary peptide identification and optimization platform originally created to present diverse libraries of peptides to probe cell surfaces and establish T‑cell epitopes. The technology supports non‑natural amino acids, constrained peptides, and post‑translationally modified peptides, enabling internal and partnered peptide drug discovery and development programs. The company was co‑founded in 2015 by Professors Graham Ogg and Terry Rabbitts from Oxford University’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine and is led by CEO Alex Batchelor. Orbit plans to use the Series A proceeds to expand platform industrialization. The company collaborates with biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners to advance its discovery programs. No operating metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2020

Ovation.io offers a cloud-based lab software platform that helps medical testing labs manage data, match researchers with the right data and labs, and accelerate workflows up to five times versus traditional methods. CEO and co-founder Barry Wark launched the company shortly after earning his doctorate in neurobiology and behavior from the University of Washington. Over the past 12 months the company has more than doubled its revenue and grown patient volume 75-fold. Ovation positions its platform to address complexity in genomics and molecular testing by using data and cloud technology to enable faster, lower-cost precision diagnosis. The company says the new funding will provide resources to scale operations to an "unprecedented scale" so more patients can benefit. Ovation.io is based in Boston. Ovation offers cloud-based storage and operations solutions that help researchers and labs organize, describe, visualize, and collaborate on experimental and analytical data. Its platform includes tools to map relationships between datasets and a service-lab offering that combines training records, document management, and sample tracking. The company recently launched Automated Systems Validation (ASV), which automates computer system validation after software updates to reduce regulatory burden on clinical labs. Ovation says ASV eliminates time-consuming manual validation, freeing lab staff to focus on day-to-day operations. To support product development and clinical adoption it has added senior product, data, and clinical hires and plans to expand its Product and Engineering teams. The company announced $3 million in additional funding to accelerate these efforts and further enable molecular diagnostic labs in the precision medicine space. Ovation.io builds a cloud-based laboratory information system and operations/intelligence software platform purpose-built for molecular diagnostics and precision testing labs. Its commercial, out-of-the-box product, Ovation Diagnostic, supports sample tracking, client relations, EHR integrations, revenue cycle management, reporting, operational intelligence, and results analytics. The platform is designed to scale with each lab’s needs and to reimagine the role of a LIMS/LIS within the clinical diagnostics ecosystem. Ovation emphasizes a modern SaaS and cloud-based infrastructure with seamless integrations to best-in-class partners and consultants. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate lab deployments and expand features that help independent labs grow and extract business value from their data. Ovation.io is a Cambridge, Mass.-based maker of a clinical laboratory information and commercialization platform. Led by CEO Barry Wark, the company is evolving beyond a laboratory information management system (LIMS) into a full commercialization ecosystem for diagnostic labs. Its platform includes sample tracking, billing and reimbursement, reporting, document and training management, client management, laboratory consulting services and business analytics. Ovation.io signed a partnership with The Hunt Group to leverage technology partnerships to expand their combined platform into a central ecosystem for diagnostic labs. The company closed an expanded $1.85M round of financing and intends to use the funds to continue to grow operations. The board and advisory panel were strengthened with the addition of John Walker to the board and advisors Chad Robins, Rich Miller and Vinay Gidwaney. Ovation Life Sciences provides cloud-based data management, collaboration and laboratory coordination services to visualize and explore relationships between samples, data, analyses, and conclusions. Its Ovation Research Pro SaaS platform supports integration and exploration of genomic and other omic datasets. The company will use the $1.5M in funding to continue development of its scientific SaaS platforms. Ovation is led by CEO Barry Wark and is based in Cambridge, MA. The company announced a partnership with iGeneTRAiN, a multi-institutional transplant consortium co-led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. iGeneTRAiN will use Ovation Research Pro to integrate genomic and other omic datasets across more than 48,000 samples from over 30 studies in 12 countries.

Led · Equity · Nov 2020

One Health provides FidoCure®, a human-grade precision medicine platform that enables pet parents and veterinarians to access genetic-driven oncology care for dogs. FidoCure uses next-generation sequencing at a CLIA-certified lab to identify genetic mutations, produces precision medicine reports with clear therapeutic recommendations, and facilitates access to individualized, targeted treatments. The service is available in all U.S. states through more than 200 participating veterinarians and has enrolled over 1,000 dogs. Led by co-founder and CEO Christina Lopes, the company plans to accelerate expansion of its flagship product using the newly raised funds. The article frames the company as focused on translating human-grade science into veterinary oncology to broaden treatment access for canine patients. One Health Company markets FidoCure, a product that uses next-generation gene sequencing to identify the genetic mutations driving an individual dog’s cancer and then provides recommendations and an action plan. The service outlines therapeutic implications and targeted treatments, referencing FDA-approved human drugs with data relevant to dogs. The company says it has worked with pharmaceutical partners and compounding pharmacies to close the information gap and translate human drug data to canine care. One Health is "100 percent partnered with veterinarians," charging veterinarians directly while vets continue to see patients in person. Founder and CEO Christina Lopes frames the company’s purpose as actionability—moving from testing to clear treatment steps. The startup positions FidoCure as a lower-cost alternative to average canine cancer care (average cost cited at $6,700) by designing pricing to cost less than typical care even with markup. The One Health Company operates as a contract research organization that recruits dogs and cats with naturally occurring diseases that mirror human conditions to run clinical trials without inducing illness. It uses software to scrape trial-site databases and maintains a proprietary database of roughly 450,000 potential pets for recruitment, and families collect behavioral and outcome data via smartphone using the company’s clinical-trial management software. Pets remain with their families, diseases are never induced, and euthanasia is explicitly not considered in trials; the company positions this as a more ethical and predictive alternative to traditional animal testing. The startup has established partnerships with more than 35 trial sites in the U.S. and abroad, including France, Belgium, and Brazil, and is currently running two live trials on different diseases. Founders Christina Lopes (CEO) and Benjamin Lewis (co-founder and COO) emphasize use cases in combination therapies and immunotherapy where naturally immunocompetent pets provide more predictive data than lab animals. Financially, the company has raised more than $750,000 to date and received $50,000 through participation in the University City Science Center Digital Health Accelerator. The company has also set up contracts with a top gene therapy lab, one of the five largest pharmaceutical companies, and a top-five medical device company.