The Venture Codex

Led · Series C · Mar 2024

Proscia provides an enterprise pathology platform, Concentriq, plus a precision medicine AI portfolio and real-world data to accelerate development and use of therapies and diagnostics. The company’s products are used daily by pharmaceutical companies and a global network of diagnostic laboratories. Proscia holds FDA 510(k) clearance and CE‑IVDR certification for its diagnostic software. Led by CEO David West, the company focuses on enabling AI to advance precision medicine and tackle diseases such as cancer. Proscia recently raised $50M, bringing its total funding to $130M, and intends to use the proceeds to grow its customer footprint and advance Concentriq’s AI capabilities. Proscia develops a digital pathology software platform and AI applications that automate tasks such as quality control and tumor identification. Its open platform enables partners, customers, and developers to build and deploy disease-specific AI tools, and the company works with cloud providers like AWS and Azure to scale enterprise deployments. The platform is used by 14 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies to leverage pathology image data for drug discovery and development. Proscia recently received FDA clearance for its software, which allows it to expand into the U.S. diagnostic market. The company raised a $9 million extension to its Series C, bringing the round to $46 million, and plans to use the funds to accelerate commercial growth and further develop its AI-powered applications. Proscia positions itself to address a global pathologist shortage and rising cancer rates as digital pathology adoption accelerates toward widespread use in the next 5–7 years. Proscia provides the Concentriq® platform, which combines enterprise scalability with a broad portfolio of AI applications for digital and computational pathology. Led by CEO David West and based in Philadelphia, the company serves customers including 10 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and the Joint Pathology Center, which selected Concentriq to digitize a tissue repository of over 55 million slides. Proscia raised $37M in a Series C to accelerate adoption of computational pathology and strengthen its market and product leadership. The company plans to use the funds to scale commercial operations and expand its sales, marketing, and support teams. Proscia also intends to grow distribution partnerships following a recent OEM agreement with Siemens Healthineers. These investments are aimed at expanding its AI-driven pathology offerings and commercial footprint. Proscia offers the Concentriq digital pathology platform combined with AI-powered applications to digitize high-resolution tissue biopsy images and unlock new insights for laboratories, health systems, and life sciences companies. The company plans to expand its AI application portfolio (building on its DermAI application), grow its data assets, and accelerate commercial expansion by ramping up global sales, marketing, and support teams. Proscia will also advance its regulatory strategy to pursue FDA clearance, building on its existing CE Mark and MDSAP certification. Since closing a Series A in 2018, Proscia has amassed customers including Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the Joint Pathology Center, and 10 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies. JPC selected Concentriq to digitize the world’s largest human tissue repository of over 55 million slides. The company positions its software and AI to transform pathology’s historically analog workflows into data-driven diagnostics to improve patient outcomes and accelerate biomedical research. Proscia offers a cloud-based, modular digital pathology platform used by thousands of pathologists, scientists, histotechnicians, and lab managers at more than 300 clinical and research facilities worldwide. The platform integrates with labs' existing environments and technology ecosystems to enable digital adoption, streamline image-based workflows, and open imaging and analytics revenue streams. Proscia is building AI-enabled, disease-specific modules that sit atop its platform to augment pathologists' evaluations and improve diagnostic efficiency and quality. The company plans to commercialize new clinical AI workflows targeting high-volume, high-impact cancers, with its first module, DermAI™, scheduled for release in December 2018. Proscia positions these technologies to increase access to care, reduce turnaround times and costs, and unlock data from tissue to advance cancer research and diagnosis. The company was founded by a team from Johns Hopkins and the University of Pittsburgh to improve clinical outcomes in the fight against cancer.

Participated · Series D · Mar 2021

Tomorrow.io positions itself as the world's leading Resilience Platform, combining a proprietary satellite constellation with a generative AI–integrated forecasting engine to deliver weather intelligence. The company says it operates a fully operational proprietary satellite constellation and leverages next-generation space technology, advanced AI, and proprietary weather modeling. Tomorrow.io is deploying DeepSky, described as the world's first AI-native weather satellite constellation, and aims to expand its space-based observation network. Its platform is used to provide real-time, actionable resilience intelligence and is trusted by six of the top ten Fortune 500 companies. The company has been recognized as a TIME 100 Most Influential Company and a Fast Company Most Innovative Company. The recent expansion of its Series F to $210 million is intended to accelerate its AI capabilities and further develop its agentic platform.

Participated · Series D · Mar 2021

Atai Life Sciences is a mental health-focused biotech developing therapies in the psychiatric/mental health space. The company has a sizable portfolio and recently reassessed its programs. As part of that reassessment it has pruned its pipeline and exited partnerships. Atai has taken on a $175M loan as it reorganizes. Management says it is concentrating resources on looming data readouts from remaining programs. The company frames these moves as planning for the long haul. atai Life Sciences is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing psychedelic and non-psychedelic compounds to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health disorders. The company acquires, incubates and develops therapeutics using funding, technology, and scientific and regulatory expertise, with a focus on psychedelic therapy and drugs with differentiated safety profiles. atai is led by Christian Angermayer and Florian Brand (CEO & co-founder) and operates from Berlin with offices in New York. The company plans to use its new capital to expand and develop its diverse drug candidate pipeline and enabling technologies. It also intends to continue advancing current clinical developments and to scale its team to deliver key milestones. Financially, atai closed a $157M Series D financing to support these efforts. ATAI Life Sciences is a global biotechnology company developing psychedelic and non-psychedelic compounds to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health disorders. Its model acquires and incubates programs across multiple entities, combining funding, platform technologies, and scientific and regulatory expertise to accelerate therapeutic development. ATAI focuses on advancing both drug candidates and platform tools with the aim of treating and ultimately preventing mental health disorders. Proceeds from the recent financing will primarily fund pre-clinical and clinical development, expand ATAI's pipeline, and further advance its platform technologies. Management expects the funding to provide runway for several near-term milestones, including Phase 2 data readouts for arketamine in treatment-resistant depression and ibogaine in opioid use disorder, plus completion of Phase 1 and initiation of Phase 2 trials in four other programs. ATAI was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Berlin, with offices in New York and San Diego. ATAI Life Sciences is a global biotech platform that uses a decentralized, big-data approach to accelerate early-stage drug development for mental health disorders. Founded in 2018 by Christian Angermayer, Lars Wilde and Florian Brand, the company focuses on paradigm-shifting and formerly stigmatized compounds with prior evidence of efficacy and safety in humans. Its portfolio includes Innoplexus, which delivers big data and AI solutions that ATAI uses for in-house discovery, and ATAI is the largest investor in COMPASS Pathways, which is developing psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression. In January ATAI acquired Perception Neuroscience and is developing an arketamine therapy for neuropsychiatric diseases. The company cites an initial focus on addressing depression — affecting more than 300 million people, with roughly 100 million treatment-resistant cases — and plans to use its platform to expand the pipeline and acquire additional compounds. ATAI is based in Berlin, London and New York and recently closed a $43 million Series B to fund platform technology, pipeline development, and acquisitions.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2019

Passage Bio is a genetic medicines company focused on developing AAV-delivered therapeutics to treat rare monogenic CNS diseases. The company works with the University of Pennsylvania’s Gene Therapy Program and Orphan Disease Center under research, collaboration and license agreements. Passage Bio has a development portfolio of five product candidates and has licensed two additional indications from Penn, with options to license up to seven more. The company planned to initiate clinical trials for lead programs in GM1 gangliosidosis and frontotemporal dementia in the first half of 2020, and a Krabbe disease program in the second half of 2020. Passage Bio is based in Philadelphia and conducts clinical development, regulatory strategy and commercialization while Penn’s GTP conducts IND‑enabling preclinical work. Financially, the company announced a $110.0 million Series B and, since launch, has raised $225.5 million in total. Passage Bio is developing a portfolio of AAV-delivered therapeutics targeting rare monogenic CNS diseases, with initial lead programs in GM1 gangliosidosis and frontotemporal dementia. The company has a research, collaboration and license agreement with the University of Pennsylvania’s Gene Therapy Program and Orphan Disease Center; Penn will perform IND-enabling preclinical work while Passage Bio is responsible for clinical development, regulatory, manufacturing and commercialization. Passage Bio plans a portfolio of five therapeutic candidates and holds an option to fund preclinical development of up to seven additional Penn programs and license resulting intellectual property. The company completed a $115.5 million Series A financing to advance its pipeline and build its team. Leadership and scientific expertise include co-founders James M. Wilson (scientific advisor), Stephen Squinto (interim CEO) and Tachi Yamada (chairman), and a Board with partners from key investors. The ODC will support natural history studies, KOL engagement and patient advocacy outreach as programs move toward the clinic.