Participated · Series C · Nov 2024

Enveda is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that learns from life’s chemistry to create small-molecule therapeutics using AI-powered metabolomics and a proprietary chemical sequencer. The platform makes previously inaccessible natural chemistry searchable and uses automation to map therapeutic properties at high throughput. Enveda says it delivers 12+ development candidates 4× faster and 10× cheaper than industry averages and has built one of the world’s largest collections of natural samples. Its pipeline includes sixteen preclinical programs, more than a dozen development candidates, four IND-enabling programs, and one clinical program. ENV-294, the lead program, is a first-in-class oral anti-inflammatory small molecule discovered on the platform and has moved into a Phase 1b trial after favorable Phase 1a results; Enveda has enrolled the first patient. The company recently raised additional capital and added industry veteran Dr. Mikael Dolsten to its board to support clinical advancement across atopic dermatitis, asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, and other indications. Enveda harnesses AI-powered tools to identify and characterize molecules produced by living organisms, building a database of chemical biodiversity it calls the library of life. Its platform integrates computational methods with deep chemical and biological insights to uncover novel mechanisms of action and drug candidates. The company has advanced ENV-294, a first-in-class molecule for atopic dermatitis and asthma, into clinical trials and highlights the potential for a safe, effective oral therapy in immunology and inflammation. Enveda plans to expand its clinical pipeline in 2025 and further enhance its AI-driven discovery capabilities. The company frames its approach as metabolite-driven drug development aimed at delivering medicines faster by learning from evolved solutions in nature. Enveda is a biotechnology company that uses an AI-powered platform combining metabolomics, machine learning, and automated high-throughput laboratory workflows to translate natural compounds into drug candidates. Its platform has characterized the structure and function of over 1 million natural compounds, creating the largest known natural product dataset custom-built for modern drug discovery. The company says this approach answers what molecules are and what they do at scale and enables discovery roughly four times faster than historical averages. Enveda’s pipeline includes 10 Development Candidates across immunology & inflammation, obesity, fibrosis, and neurosensory indications. The company recently received IND clearance for ENV-294, which entered Phase I at the end of October. The new funding will support multiple clinical catalysts in 2025 and 2026 and further investment in the platform and discovery programs. Enveda Biosciences, founded in 2019 and based in Boulder, Colorado, combines AI with ethnobotanical knowledge to identify medicinal molecules from plants. The company has assembled a database of about 38,000 medicinal plants linked to roughly 12,000 diseases and symptoms. Using a transformer model that deciphers the "chemical language" of whole samples, Enveda prioritizes sets of molecules for development rather than studying single compounds in isolation. That platform has produced near-term assets: two drugs (one for skin conditions including eczema, and one for inflammatory bowel diseases) are expected to enter clinical trials later this year. Financially, the company has raised capital that totals $230 million to date and plans to pursue a Series C after the start of those clinical trials. Enveda builds a proprietary platform that combines large language models, metabolomics, and robotics to create a high-resolution chemical map of nature and search nature’s chemical space for drug discovery. The platform addresses long-standing obstacles in natural product drug development, including active molecule identification, property and structure prioritization, amenability to medicinal chemistry, and large-scale material access. Enveda pairs this technology with experienced drug hunters and data scientists to advance platform-derived molecules. The company plans to progress multiple platform-derived molecules to the clinic in 2023 and 2024 across inflammation, fibrosis, and neurosensory indications. Financially, Enveda has been raising growth capital to advance its pipeline and platform and recently completed additional financing to support clinical progress. For more information, Enveda directs readers to envedabio.com.

Participated · Series B · Sep 2024

Formo is a Berlin-based fermentation startup that makes animal-free cheeses using Koji protein as the primary ingredient. Its production uses micro fermentation—harvesting Koji proteins without genetic modification—allowing it to avoid novel-food regulatory hurdles and sell products immediately. The company launched two SKUs (Frishchain cream-style spread €2.89 and Camembritz Brie-style €3.99) in more than 2,000 REWE, BILLA and METRO stores in Germany and Austria and currently produces about 100 tons per month. Formo plans to scale production to 1,000 tons per month by early 2025 and expand to other European markets and beyond. Future plans include moving into precision fermentation and gene editing to produce milk proteins such as casein to enable meltable hard cheeses; feta-style and blue cheeses are also in the pipeline. The company highlights sustainability benefits (claims of 65% fewer emissions, 83% less land use, and 96% less water versus dairy cream cheese) and says early reception has been strong with a view to reach net profitability relatively soon. Formo is Europe’s first cellular agriculture company developing animal-free dairy products using nature-identical milk proteins produced via precision fermentation. Founded in 2019 and based in Berlin, the startup domesticates microorganisms instead of cows to create cheeses that match the taste, texture, and functional properties of animal-derived products. The company highlights that microorganisms can be up to 20 times more efficient than cows at converting feed into food, which it says supports environmental and cost advantages. Formo plans to use its recent funding to build a pilot plant, fast-track commercial-scale production, and expand its molecular biology and food science teams. With increased R&D capacity, the company intends to broaden its product portfolio to include European dairy specialties such as mozzarella and ricotta, developing techniques in collaboration with artisan cheesemakers. Formo positions its technology as a way to reduce the environmental, human health, and animal welfare costs of traditional dairy production.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2023

Yard Stick PBC, based in Cambridge, MA and led by CEO Chris Tolles, provides a soil carbon measurement solution combining proprietary hardware and software. Its technologies can measure soil organic carbon up to a metre in depth, create statistically sound sample plans, and collect measurement data in real time. The company says its approach reduces the cost of measurement by 70–90% and is compliant with voluntary carbon market crediting programs. Yard Stick reports solid sales traction, with multi-year contracts worth more than $17M in revenue and a pipeline that includes major players in soil markets. Fieldwork to date has covered many hundreds of thousands of acres across 26 US states. The company has raised nearly $18M in venture capital to date. Yard Stick is commercializing a soil spectroscopy technology into handheld hardware and a data platform to dramatically lower the cost of measuring soil carbon. The company says its technology will reduce measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) costs by more than 90% while improving analytical rigor versus current methods. Yard Stick is positioned as the soil carbon stock quantification partner for six USDA-selected projects and will provide low-cost, high-precision MRV to participating farmers and ranchers. The work aims to unlock economic opportunities for farmers to capture payments for verified soil carbon sequestration and to scale evidence-based climate-positive agriculture. Yard Stick’s R&D has been funded by an ARPA-E grant and by climate investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures. The company’s stated mission is to enable gigaton-scale agricultural carbon sequestration through scalable, trustworthy measurement solutions.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2023

Overstory builds an AI-driven grid-resilience platform that analyzes high-resolution satellite data to identify vegetation and infrastructure risks for electric utilities. Its software pinpoints tree-by-tree threats, helping utilities reduce outages, prevent wildfires, and optimize maintenance budgets. The company recently introduced the next generation of its Wildfire Intelligence product, featuring a proprietary Fuel Detection Model that locates the highest-risk fuels and recommends precise mitigation actions. Overstory reports that it now serves six of the ten largest utilities across the Americas. The team has grown to more than 80 employees representing 16 nationalities and spans machine learning, data science, arboriculture, and wildfire expertise. With new leadership from incoming COO Tamara Mendelsohn, the firm plans to accelerate AI risk-model development, broaden its wildfire-prevention suite, and expand its global footprint. Overstory maintains dual headquarters in Boston and Amsterdam.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2022

Aquabyte builds underwater camera systems and machine‑learning models that transform images and signals into real-time metrics such as lice counts, individual weights, growth, and other welfare indicators. Its product allows farms to monitor fish without handling them and take immediate actions to reduce treatments and waste. The company has deployed hundreds of systems monitoring salmon and trout and has processed over 300 million unique fish images. Aquabyte was first to receive approval by dispensation for automatic sea lice counting from the Norwegian Food Safety Authorities. The team draws on fish‑welfare biologists, computer vision/AI specialists, and engineers to deliver actionable insights to farms. With offices in San Francisco, New York, Chile, and Norway, Aquabyte plans to scale to more species and more countries. Aquabyte develops underwater stereoscopic camera systems and machine learning algorithms to measure fish health, size, and optimal feed quantities for aquaculture farms. Its products aim to reduce operational costs, decrease fish mortality, and minimize environmental impact. The company has launched general availability in Norway and is working with Norwegian salmon and trout farms. Aquabyte reports having processed more than a petabyte of fish images and scanned over 2.5 million fish; its algorithms estimate group fish weight within 0.8% of true weight 95% of the time. The company has also detected more than 100,000 sea lice and plans to expand its product line to estimate fish appetite and quality, predict sea lice outbreaks, and automate feeding. Leadership includes founder and CEO Bryton Shang and the recently added independent board member Chandran Sankaran. Aquabyte builds machine learning models and deploys underwater 3D cameras to augment the visual IQ of human-operated fish-farming systems. Installed in fish farm pens, the cameras allow the technology to measure fish size and biomass to determine optimal feed quantities. The company is developing additional applications such as automated sea-lice counting, a problem that accounts for about $1 billion in damages in Norway. Aquabyte has established pilots at local research institutions and farms around Norway through assistance from NCE Seafood Innovation. The team operates from San Francisco and Bergen, Norway, and is led by founder and CEO Bryton Shang. Aquabyte raised $3.5M in seed funding to advance its technology and pilots.