• Phytolon

  Participated · Series B · May 2026

  Phytolon develops natural food colorants through proprietary precision fermentation, producing a palette based on two core pigments—yellow and purple—that yield colors across yellow, orange, red, pink, and purple. Its portfolio includes Beetroot Red, which has received FDA approval pending procedural timing. The company emphasizes cost efficiency, robust supply, and environmental sustainability as differentiators for its fermentation-derived colors. Found in Yokne'am, Israel, Phytolon aims to commercialize its products for CPGs and distribution partners in the U.S. and beyond. Following the $23.6 million Series B, the company plans to allocate proceeds to support sales and scaling of supply and distribution.

• Syntis Bio

  Participated · Series A · Jul 2025

  Syntis Bio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing oral therapies that harness the small intestine’s biology via its SYNT™ (SYNthetic Tissue-lining) platform. The SYNT platform delivers a transient polydopamine polymer coating in the small intestine to control nutrient uptake, sustain gut-restricted enzymes, and increase oral drug absorption for up to 24 hours. The company’s lead program, SYNT-101, is being developed as a once-daily pill for obesity and has shown preclinical weight-loss and muscle-preservation data as well as early human evidence of nutrient redirection, satiety-hormone modulation, and favorable safety. Syntis is also advancing SYNT-202, a first-in-class oral enzyme therapy for the rare pediatric disorder homocystinuria, and plans Phase 1 studies for both programs. Data from over 100 preclinical pig studies conducted by MIT and Syntis indicate SYNT can block glucose, improve enzyme activity, and increase oral drug bioavailability. The company is headquartered in Boston, MA. Syntis Bio is advancing a portfolio of oral therapies engineered to exploit the small intestine’s biology for metabolic control, digestion and drug absorption. Its lead program, SYNT-101, is a once-daily pill that transiently blocks nutrient absorption in the duodenum to mimic gastric bypass; a formulation is in human trials with a full data readout expected by the end of 2024 and plans to use those data to support an IND filing with the FDA in 2025. The company’s SYNT™ (SYNthetic Tissue-lining) platform delivers a transient polydopamine coating to the duodenum that persists up to 24 hours and, in more than 100 preclinical pig studies, has demonstrated up to 70% glucose blocking, 20x improved enzyme activity, and 4–10x increased oral drug bioavailability. In April 2024 Syntis acquired engineered enzyme programs from Codexis and is developing SYNT-202 for homocystinuria and SYNT-203 for maple syrup urine disease; both completed non-human primate studies and an IND for one candidate is anticipated in 2025. The company is also developing next-generation formulations and discovery-stage programs targeting pancreatic insufficiency and peptic ulcers. Syntis is headquartered in Boston and has raised $15.5 million to date from life-sciences and strategic investors.

• MEND

  Participated · Series A · Jun 2023

  Mend is a Long Island City-based health-tech startup that offers a combined platform of high-quality nutritional supplements and technology-enabled remote monitoring tools aimed at improving patient outcomes in concierge medicine. Its products allow users to proactively track and enhance their health while receiving personalized dietary support. The company positions itself at the intersection of nutrition and digital health, targeting partnerships with surgical practices to embed its offerings in post-operative and long-term care regimes. Following its recent capital influx, Mend plans to broaden its supplement portfolio and scale its telehealth infrastructure. The leadership also intends to deepen integrations with clinical partners to capture a larger share of the growing personalized wellness market. The Series A financing underscores strong investor confidence in the firm’s ability to innovate within the nutrition and remote-care sectors. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article, but the new funds provide runway to accelerate product development and market expansion.

• Novome Biotechnologies

  Participated · Series B · Sep 2022

  Novome develops Genetically Engineered Microbial Medicines (GEMMs), proprietary commensal bacterial strains designed to colonize the gut at controllable abundance and express therapeutic proteins. Its lead investigational product, NOV-001, is an oral combination of a recombinant live biotherapeutic and a botanically derived polysaccharide that demonstrated safe, dose-dependent colonization in a Phase 1 study. Novome is currently conducting a Phase 2a trial of NOV-001 in patients with enteric hyperoxaluria to evaluate safety, tolerability, and early efficacy. The company is also advancing multiple GEMM candidates for inflammatory bowel disease, including programs from a collaboration with Genentech, and exploring additional indications such as irritable bowel syndrome and immuno-oncology. Novome highlights platform capabilities to deliver high amounts of therapeutic proteins to the gastrointestinal tract via continuous, controlled secretion and to control strain abundance via once-daily prebiotic dosing. The recent financing will be used to advance the NOV-001 Phase 2a study and the broader GEMM pipeline. Novome Biotechnologies is a South San Francisco biotechnology company developing living medicines by engineering therapeutic bacteria to colonize the human gut. Its Genetically Engineered Microbial Medicines (GEMMs) platform supports a lead preclinical program in hyperoxaluria focused on a live biotherapeutic that degrades oxalate to prevent kidney stones. The company plans to use the financing to advance the hyperoxaluria program through Phase 1 clinical proof-of-concept and to expand the GEMMs platform into additional indications. Novome was founded in 2016 by scientists from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley based on research from Dr. Justin Sonnenburg's laboratory; founding scientists include Will DeLoache, Weston Whitaker, Zachary Russ, and Liz Shepherd. Leadership includes CEO Blake Wise and Co‑Founder/CSO Will DeLoache. The company is pursuing multiple additional programs that leverage its proprietary synthetic biology platform.

• Apprentice.io

  Participated · Series C · Jan 2022

  Apprentice.io provides a technology platform that helps life-science manufacturers turn molecules into medicine. Its Tempo Manufacturing Cloud accelerates the end-to-end drug product lifecycle by connecting distributed teams and sites, enabling shop-floor execution and real-time enterprise-wide visibility. Fifteen of the top 20 U.S. pharmaceutical companies use the platform to accelerate high-quality production across diseases from COVID to cancer. The company is led by CEO Angelo Stracquatanio and is based in Jersey City, NJ. It intends to use the newly raised funds to expand sales, marketing, and customer success functions. The round increased the company's total capital raised to $207M. Apprentice develops virtual collaboration products, including its first product Tandem, a wearable headset designed to enable remote collaboration on the facility floor. The company is based in Jersey City, NJ. It has completed a Series C round of funding of over $100 million. The Series C was led by new investor Alkeon Capital Management. Repeat investors Silverton Partners, Insight Partners, and Pacific Western Bank participated, and Colorcon Ventures made a new investment. The round brings the firm's total funding to $142 million. Apprentice.io delivers a life-sciences industry intelligent manufacturing execution system that helps teams scale faster across small and large molecule, and cell and gene therapy manufacturing. Its cloud-based platform leverages artificial intelligence, augmented reality and Pharma 4.0 to accelerate batch execution and global collaboration. The Apprentice System is an end-to-end platform offering intelligent batch execution, augmented procedures/workflows, predictive resource management, event tracking, remote collaboration and immersive training. The company says its software is helping to increase speed to market on a number of COVID-19 vaccines. Apprentice.io supports Fortune 100 clients and other complex, compliance-driven customers across the U.S., Asia, South America and Europe. Led by CEO and co-founder Angelo Stracquatanio, the company plans to use new funds to continue assisting customers as they ramp up production. Apprentice.io provides an intelligent, regulatory-compliant software platform for life sciences manufacturing that combines batch execution, augmented procedures, guided workflows, predictive resource management, event tracking and immersive training. The platform is enhanced with AI, machine learning and augmented reality and is paired with an AR-enhanced remote collaboration tool called Tandem for secure in-suite assistance and troubleshooting. Tandem enables subject-matter experts to assist operators remotely so sensitive project timelines are maintained and transfers between locations are executed correctly. The company supports Fortune 100 clients and other organizations across the U.S., Asia, South America and Europe. Led by CEO and co-founder Angelo Stracquatanio and based in Jersey City, NY, Apprentice.io raised $7.5M in funding and intends to use the proceeds to scale its mounting efforts. The article does not disclose operating metrics or financing instrument details. Apprentice.io develops a conversational augmented reality and artificial intelligence platform tailored for enterprise workflows in pharma and biotech, including batch records, tech transfer, R&D workflows, training, troubleshooting, and support. The platform is device- and platform-independent, supporting mobile ARKit/ARCore, fully immersive headsets (HoloLens, Magic Leap), and monocular smart glasses for all-day operation. The company operates an in-house research laboratory and highlights integrated industry features and intelligent data-capture for audit-readiness. Apprentice has tripled in size and customer reach, adding numerous Fortune 100 clients across the U.S., Asia, South America and Europe. Financially, the company has raised more than $10 million in total capital to date and announced an $8M Series A. With new capital, Apprentice plans significant product and feature developments, improved intelligent responses, and international partnerships to expand its deployments.

No current team members are available.