Participated · Series A · Mar 2022

LifeScore develops proprietary adaptive music technology that delivers real-time, context-aware soundtracks. Its patented Cellular Composition platform uses AI to transform pre-recorded 'cells'—captured at Abbey Road Studios with ambisonic microphones—into layered, sequenced, and mixed outputs. The company targets applications across AR and other simulated environments, including live streaming, gaming, automotive, sleep, fitness, health, and wellness. LifeScore's technology has been incorporated into a Bentley demonstration vehicle and the company has signed a deal with Audi. The founding team includes composer Philip Sheppard, Siri co-founder Tom Gruber, former ARM executive Ian Drew, and Chris Walch. LifeScore stresses its system complements human-composed music rather than replacing it. The company plans to use the new funding to further develop its adaptive music technology and expand its customer base in Europe, the U.S., and Asia. The Series A brings LifeScore's total funding to £12 million.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2021

Natural Fiber Welding (NFW) is a Peoria, Illinois–based materials-science company that engineers high-performance, plant-based alternatives to petroleum-derived plastics. Its proprietary green-chemistry platform powers two flagship products: MIRUM, an all-natural, plastic-free leather replacement, and PLIANT, the world’s first naturally cured performance rubber outsole. Together these materials form a regenerative, circular platform aimed at footwear, fashion, automotive, and industrial markets. The company positions its solutions as drop-in replacements that match or exceed conventional materials on performance, durability, and aesthetics while radically lowering carbon footprints. NFW is seeing rising demand from global brand partners and has secured strategic backing from investors such as BMW iVentures, Ralph Lauren Corporation, Allbirds, and Asahi Kasei. The latest capital will be used to accelerate commercialization, expand manufacturing capacity, and support ongoing product innovation. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Equity · Nov 2020

Elevian is an emerging biotech focused on restoring youthful regenerative capacity by targeting the GDF11 pathway. Its lead program is recombinant human GDF11 aimed at enhancing stroke recovery and has shown efficacy in preclinical ischemic and hemorrhagic models by promoting vascular repair, reducing inflammation, and stimulating neurogenesis. Preclinical data also indicate benefits in animal models for glucose metabolism, obesity, cardiac hypertrophy, skeletal muscle repair, exercise capacity, and other age-related conditions. Elevian has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights to Harvard's GDF11 patent portfolio; its scientific founders worked at the Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. The company will use the new funding to submit an IND, scale manufacturing, and complete Phase 1 clinical trials for its lead stroke-recovery indication. The financing and board additions underscore investor confidence in Elevian's strategy to target fundamental aging mechanisms rather than single diseases. Elevian is developing medicines intended to restore youthful regenerative capacity by targeting the GDF11 pathway. Its lead candidate is recombinant human GDF11 (rGDF11), which has demonstrated efficacy in preclinical models of stroke, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart failure, Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related conditions. The company has acquired exclusive, worldwide rights to Harvard’s patent portfolio concerning circulating factors that regulate aging. Elevian has additional programs focused on discovery and development of novel proteins, antibodies and small molecule drugs that target the GDF11 pathway. The company intends to use the new funding to advance rGDF11 toward the clinic to treat stroke and other age-related diseases. Elevian is led by CEO and co-founder Mark Allen and is based in Allston, MA. Elevian is developing medicines that treat aging by restoring regenerative capacities through modulation of growth differentiation factor 11 (GDF11), a factor the team first published on in 2013. In preclinical tests, recombinant GDF11 administered to older animals stimulated stem cells and produced benefits including reduced cardiac hypertrophy, improved skeletal muscle repair, enhanced brain function and metabolism, reversal of renal and pulmonary disease, and tumor suppression. The company plans to develop therapies that regulate GDF11 and other circulating factors and expects heart disease to be its first clinical indication. Elevian intends to start a human clinical trial in two years and estimates a roughly 10-year regulatory path to market given separate trials will be needed for different indications. The first-generation therapy is a natural protein replacement that will be expensive and require frequent (daily) dosing; the company is already working on a second-generation monthly injection and exploring oral formulations. To date Elevian has raised $5.5 million in funding.

Participated · Seed · Jan 2020

Loliware develops seaweed-derived resins and materials intended to replace conventional plastics across a wide array of products. Its resins are fully compatible with existing plastic extrusion equipment, enabling manufacturers to swap seaweed pellets for plastic pellets. The materials compost easily and enrich soil once broken down. The company has commercially launched single-use drinking straws, cups, utensils and films. Loliware raised $6 million in its latest financing, bringing total pre-Series A funding to $15.4 million; the company says the funds will be used to grow the market for seaweed materials, launch new products and seaweed resins, and expand R&D. Founded in 2016 and based in San Francisco, Loliware has secured both institutional and strategic backers. Loliware develops kelp-based, plastic-like disposable straws (and planned cups and utensils) using a proprietary material and manufacturing process that preserves performance while enabling biodegradability. Founder and CEO Chelsea "Sea" Briganti led the company through extensive R&D and more than a thousand prototypes to create scalable material technology and new manufacturing practices. Demand has grown rapidly: the company says it has gone from a few million to a hundred million in recent years and projected a billion straws shipping in 2020. Loliware plans to license its automated manufacturing technology to strategic plastic or paper manufacturers rather than producing billions of straws in-house. The company is building supply-chain governance via an Algae Sustainability Council and a “Zero Waste Circular Extraction Methodology” to ensure sustainable, equitable seaweed processing. The recent seed funding will be used to accelerate scaling and further R&D for additional straw types, a cup and a utensil.