Participated · Series C · Nov 2024

TransMedics, founded in 1998, develops the Organ Care System, an investigational organ transport device designed to maintain organs in a warm, functioning state outside the body. The system aims to optimize organ health during transport, increase the number of usable donor organs, and enable living organ transplant. TransMedics recently initiated the European PROTECT trial to evaluate the Organ Care System for heart transplants. The company plans to extend the platform to other organs, including lung, liver and kidneys, and to commercialize the device. It is privately held and raised $29.75 million in Series C financing to accelerate growth, continue the PROTECT trial, and initiate new studies in Europe and the U.S. Company leadership indicated a target for European market approval early in 2007. TransMedics Group is a medical technology company built to address the need for more and better donor organs by developing portable extracorporeal warm perfusion and organ assessment technologies. The company’s Organ Care System (OCS) program focuses on preserving organ quality and assessing viability prior to transplant to potentially increase donor-organ utilization for end-stage heart, lung, and liver failure. TransMedics plans to use incremental growth capital to accelerate its commercial momentum, grow transplant volume, and improve clinical outcomes. The company said the new financing is non-dilutive and will provide financial flexibility as it scales the business. TransMedics was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts. The company intends to use the capital to retire existing debt and support continued market expansion. TransMedics has developed the Organ Care System (OCS), a portable technology and multi-organ platform designed to maintain donor organs in a near-physiologic state outside the body to improve transplant outcomes and expand the pool of transplantable organs. The company’s OCS Heart and OCS Lung systems are CE Marked and are used by transplant centers in Europe, Australia and Canada. The OCS Heart, Lung and Liver systems are in clinical trials in the United States. TransMedics is led by Dr. Waleed Hassanein, President and CEO. The company recently closed a $51.2M growth equity financing. TransMedics develops a portable warm blood perfusion system—referred to in coverage as an Organ Care System—that keeps donor organs functioning outside the body instead of on ice. The device is positioned as a “living organ transplant” solution intended to improve organ condition prior to transplant surgery. Reported benefits include the ability to resuscitate hearts from donors after circulatory death and to identify pathologically abnormal hearts that might be missed with cold static storage. A study and accompanying editorial in The Lancet found short-term outcomes comparable to cold storage but noted the system could reveal abnormalities and that more study is needed. The privately held Boston company was launched in 1998 and has raised well over $100 million to date, leaving it well-capitalized. CEO Waleed Hassanein has publicly criticized cooler-based transport and promoted the system as a better method for organ preservation and transport. TransMedics is an Andover, Massachusetts–based medical technology company focused on extending the life-saving benefits of organ transplantation. Led by President and CEO Dr. Waleed Hassanein, the company develops the Organ Care System (OCS™) Heart and Lung devices. The OCS devices are portable preservation technologies that maintain donor organs in a near-physiologic and functioning condition from donor to transplant recipient. TransMedics closed a $36M financing to support its programs. The company intends to use the funding to complete its heart and lung FDA pivotal trials and expand global commercial activities. In conjunction with the financing, representatives from the lead investor joined TransMedics’ Board of Directors.

Participated · Seed · May 2023

Interactive Cares is a Dhaka-based edtech startup founded in 2020 that offers online courses in skills development, test preparation, and competitive education. Its catalog includes career paths such as web development and digital marketing, and higher-education test prep for exams like the GRE and IELTS. The company emphasizes employability by partnering with employers to facilitate placements for students from certain courses. Interactive Cares has over 300,000 registered learners on its platform and has raised roughly $700,000 from investors including Accelerating Asia, Flagship Ventures, SuperCharger Ventures, and others. It is developing AI and blockchain solutions aimed at credentialing, skills authentication, and personalized learning. The $100,000 grant from Open Campus Accelerator will fund further development of those AI- and blockchain-powered programs for employability training and career upskilling. Interactive Cares is a Dhaka-based ed-tech platform operating at the intersection of skills development, select test preparation, and competitive exams. The company partners with experts and organizations to create courses and describes itself as a one-stop virtual ed-tech platform for creating employability through courses, career paths, and master classes. It offers 107 courses and reports 85,000 paid users, more than 100 company partnerships, and over 5,000 job placements to date. Founded in 2020, Interactive Cares aims to create job placement opportunities for local people in the global market and build scalable technology to streamline hiring for companies. The startup plans to build advanced certification courses in collaboration with local and global universities and companies so enrolled students receive partner university certificates and job opportunities from partner companies. Recently it was selected for SuperCharger Ventures' ed-tech accelerator cohort, which provides cohort startups up to $270,000 in investment and access to investors, mentors, and corporate partners. The company has raised $220K in a pre-seed A round from Flagship Ventures, Mohammad Maaz, Blue Aura Ventures and other strategic investors.

Participated · Series C · Nov 2016

YourBio Health enables individuals to collect a blood sample from home and receive test results via a secure website, providing access to and control of personal health data. The service is led by Harry Wilcox. The company was founded by Flagship Pioneering and is based in Boston, MA. YourBio intends to use new capital to accelerate growth and support forthcoming product launches. Financially, the company raised $21M in funding in a round led by Flagship Pioneering with participation from Newpath Partners. The article highlights Flagship Pioneering's background: since its launch in 2000, through Flagship Labs it has originated more than 100 scientific ventures and generated over $130 billion in aggregate value. Seventh Sense Biosystems, based in Medford, MA, has designed TAP™, a first push-button blood collection device positioned on a patient’s upper arm. TAP is currently under FDA 510(k) review and is not yet for sale. Future versions are planned to enable patients to collect their own blood anywhere and anytime. The company is led by CEO Howard Weisman with Stuart Blitz serving as Chief Business Officer. Seventh Sense says it will use the new funding to develop new products and expand production capacity. Seventh Sense Biosystems develops and commercializes the Touch Activated Phlebotomy (TAP) platform, a virtually painless micro-needle and microfluidic system that collects capillary blood without venipuncture. The company is focused on enabling point-of-care diagnostic testing in hospitals, doctor’s offices and clinical trials by reducing discomfort and logistical barriers to blood sampling. When fully commercialized, TAP is expected to incorporate additional capabilities for sample separation, dried blood spot collection and on-board diagnostic abilities. 7SBio’s TAP device is designed for fully automated, high-throughput manufacturing and includes features such as anticoagulant stabilization and a visual collection indicator. The company has received notices of allowance for three U.S. patents and its first patent in October 2013. Founded in 2008 within Flagship VentureLabs and based in Cambridge, Mass., 7SBio plans to use recent financing to complete product development and move toward commercialization. Seventh Sense Biosystems is developing an array of products based on its proprietary Touch Activated Phlebotomy (TAP) painless blood collection platform, with an initial focus on point-of-care diagnostics. The company's lead product is a TAP-based, pain-free blood sampling device designed to interface with a broad range of analytical systems and reduce the discomfort, anxiety and hassle of blood collection. Seventh Sense plans to initiate the pivotal trial of its lead point-of-care device in early 2013 and to seek U.S. regulatory clearance in mid-2013. The company will use the closed Series A financing to complete clinical testing and to commercialize its first TAP-based blood collection device. It is concurrently developing a high-volume TAP blood collection system for a broad range of tests, supported by a $3.28 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for low-resource settings. The Board has appointed Howard Weisman as President and CEO; he will also serve on the company's Board of Directors and brings extensive product launch and commercialization experience. Seventh Sense was founded in 2008 and is based in Cambridge, Mass. Seventh Sense Biosystems is developing the Touch Activated Phlebotomy™ (TAP) platform, a single-step, painless microfluidic blood collection system intended for broad diagnostic applications. TAP penetrates only the uppermost skin layers and transfers blood to a collection reservoir for analysis, and the system won an Edison Gold Medal for diagnostic innovation. The company plans to expand TAP to collect higher-volume samples and to develop disposable, fully integrated sample-and-test systems as well as devices that interface with handheld or benchtop instruments. Seventh Sense intends to optimize design, develop manufacturing methods, and integrate components into a simple, power-free device that nontechnical users can operate. The company says the platform is targeted at enabling point-of-care diagnostics in resource-poor settings and hard-to-sample populations. Seventh Sense emphasizes safety, scalability, and ease-of-use as core product attributes.

Participated · Series C · Jan 2016

Tarveda Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing Pentarins™, a class of potent, selective miniaturized drug conjugates engineered for enhanced tumor penetration, target binding, and payload release. Its lead candidate PEN-221 targets somatostatin receptor 2 (SSTR2) for neuroendocrine and small cell lung cancers and comprises a peptide linked to the cytotoxic DM1. The company is also advancing PEN-866, an HSP90-targeting conjugate that delivers SN-38, and plans to move PEN-866 into clinical trials this year. Tarveda intends to use recent financing to complete Phase I dose-escalation and safety studies of PEN-221 and PEN-866 and to initiate and advance Phase 2A studies for PEN-221. The company also plans to develop additional candidates from the Pentarin platform and seek potential collaborators to apply the platform to new targets and payloads. Tarveda is based in Watertown, Mass. Tarveda Therapeutics (formerly Blend Therapeutics) is developing Pentarins, a novel class of miniaturized biologic drug conjugates engineered to penetrate solid tumors and deliver potent cancer‑killing payloads. The Pentarin platform aims to tune pharmacokinetics, biodistribution, tumor accumulation, tumor penetration, and cancer cell uptake to overcome limitations of larger modalities such as antibody drug conjugates. Tarveda’s lead candidate, PEN-221, targets the somatostatin receptor and is being developed for neuroendocrine cancers, including small cell lung cancer. The company plans to use the Series C proceeds to advance its Pentarin pipeline and to move PEN-221 into Phase 1 clinical studies in mid-2016, employing patient stratification by somatostatin receptor expression. To reflect its strategic focus, the company changed its corporate name to Tarveda and has attracted a syndicate of life sciences investors. Separately, Tarveda transitioned its platinum drug candidate BTP-114 into an independent company, Placon Therapeutics, which holds an FDA-approved IND and is seeking a strategic partner to advance clinical development. Blend Therapeutics unveiled its proprietary Pentarin platform, which creates miniaturized biologic drug conjugates (mBDCs) encapsulated in polymeric nanoparticles designed to concentrate therapy at tumor sites and penetrate deep into tumor tissue. The company secured an exclusive license to a bi-podal targeting ligand to enable a robust pipeline of Pentarins. Blend’s pipeline includes a personalized cisplatin prodrug, BTP-114, and BTP-277, the first Pentarin drug candidate. The company plans IND-enabling studies for BTP-277 and to advance BTP-114 toward an investigational new drug filing with the U.S. FDA; the article notes BTP-114 was expected to enter the clinic in mid-2015. Blend intends to explore additional internal Pentarin programs and partnerships with biotech and pharmaceutical collaborators to deploy proprietary targeting scaffolds. Financially, Blend announced a $21 million financing expansion of its Series B plus debt financing, bringing total funding to date to $39.8 million; it is backed by investors including New Enterprise Associates, Flagship Ventures, NanoDimension and Eminent Venture Capital. Blend Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that discovers new classes of medicines using an integrative R&D process that combines new-molecule discovery with a patented nanoparticle engineering platform. The company designs molecular entities specifically to be delivered by its proprietary nanoparticles to produce more targeted, effective, and tolerable therapies. Blend's initial focus is oncology, advancing a platinum drug discovery program that includes mono-functional platinums with new modes of DNA platination and distinct biological differentiation from existing platinum drugs. The company reports several product candidates in multi-billion dollar categories and plans to advance two lead molecules through IND-enabling studies. Founded by leaders from Brigham and Women’s Hospital–Harvard Medical School and MIT (including Drs. Omid Farokhzad, Robert Langer, and Stephen J. Lippard), Blend has attracted investors including Flagship Ventures, NanoDimension, and New Enterprise Associates. Blend recently announced a $16 million Series B financing to support team expansion and progression of lead programs toward IND filing with the FDA. Blend Therapeutics is focused on discovering and developing integrative combination medicines that precisely control each agent's therapeutic action using its proprietary Maestro platform. The company aims to design and integrate drugs to target distinct disease pathways with improved efficacy and safety. Blend was founded by MIT and Harvard Medical School leaders Dr. Robert Langer, Dr. Stephen Lippard, and Dr. Omid Farokhzad, who provide scientific leadership. At launch the company established a Scientific Advisory Board of eight thought leaders in chemistry, cancer biology, immunology, and medicine to guide its work. Blend announced it has secured financing from top-tier venture investors to support its research and development efforts. The company is headquartered in Watertown, MA.

Led · Series B · Jan 2016

Codiak BioSciences is a Cambridge, MA–based company that develops therapeutics using exosomes to deliver macromolecule payloads on or in the vesicle to target cells. Founded in 2015 and led by president and CEO Doug Williams, Ph.D., the company’s platform leverages exosomes’ natural intercellular trafficking to deliver DNA, RNA, proteins and lipids to specific cellular targets. Exosomes are nanometer-sized membrane vesicles that mediate intercellular communication by transferring molecular cargo and can change biological functions in recipient cells. The company’s formation was based on research from Flagship Pioneering’s VentureLabs and collaborators Jan Lotvall and Raghu Kalluri. Codiak closed a $76.5M Series C financing and intends to use the funds to advance its initial product candidates into clinical trials and continue developing its exosome therapeutic platform. Codiak BioSciences leverages exosomes as both therapeutics and diagnostics, focusing on cancer and other diseases. The company develops exosome-based approaches that deliver genomic DNA, RNA species, proteins and lipids to alter recipient cell biology. Exosomes are tiny membrane vesicles present in all body fluids and can transfer cytoplasmic payloads locally or to distant sites. Cancer-derived exosomes carry specific markers that enable their isolation, purification and analysis, and exosomes may enable mutational analysis via a simple blood test. Codiak intends to use the new funds to advance research and clinical development of exosomes for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. The company is led by Douglas E. Williams, Ph.D., and is based in Cambridge, MA. It has raised $92M in total funding to date. Codiak is building therapies and diagnostics that harness extracellular vesicles (exosomes) as delivery systems and biomarkers, with an emphasis on cancer. The company is founded on technology from Raghu Kalluri’s laboratory and has acquired foundational IP through Flagship/VentureLabs (VL27). Codiak has executed license and sponsored research agreements with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to advance its programs. The company announced the recruitment of Douglas E. Williams as founding president and CEO and named Steven Gillis chairman. Management and founders, including Eric Lander and Kalluri, aim to establish Codiak as a leader in exosome biology and therapeutic development. Codiak will be located in the Boston/Cambridge metropolitan area and is pursuing a planned $80+ million Series A and B financing.