Participated · Series A · Oct 2023

Cionic is a San Francisco-based neurotech company that develops FDA-cleared bionic clothing to facilitate more independent movement. Its lead product, the Cionic Neural Sleeve, combines a gait lab with Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) in a lightweight, durable garment that can be worn anywhere. The company intends to use its recent funding to grow user and clinician adoption among millions affected by multiple sclerosis, strokes, cerebral palsy and other neurological conditions, and to accelerate its product pipeline into new indications addressing the full spectrum of human mobility. The raise brought the company’s total capital to $25M. Cionic has doubled headcount in the past six months and established a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Northern California; it is licensed to ship the Neural Sleeve to 45 US states and works with over 400 prescribing institutions. Jeremiah Robison is founder and CEO. Cionic develops bionic clothing, notably the Neural Sleeve, a lightweight wearable that combines gait-lab diagnostics with Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) to augment movement for people with stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and other mobility issues. The Neural Sleeve is controlled via a connected smartphone and is designed to be worn anywhere as an alternative to crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs. The company was founded in 2018 by CEO Jeremiah Robison, who was inspired by his daughter’s struggles with cerebral palsy, and is based in the Bay Area. Earlier this year Cionic received FDA clearance for the Neural Sleeve following clinical trials in Ohio. The startup plans to use new funding to accelerate manufacturing and delivery of the device. Financially, the company has raised a total of $23 million to date.

Led · Equity · Apr 2023

Tonal builds a connected weight‑training system and content for the at‑home fitness market. The company shifted away from rapid growth toward a measured path to profitability after pandemic‑era expansion. It laid off roughly 35% of staff (headcount then reported around 750) and worked through excess inventory and supply‑chain challenges. Tonal has narrowed marketing to bottom‑of‑funnel performance and is considering adjustments to its product roadmap and expanded brick‑and‑mortar retail presence; its system is currently available in five stores and some Nordstrom locations for demos. Founder Aly Orady moved from CEO to CTO and president Krystal Zell was promoted to CEO; Zell says the company is “really close” to adjusted EBITDA profitability after nine months of difficult choices. The company does not disclose manufacturing locations or the valuation for the new raise. Tonal builds an all-in-one smart home strength-training system that uses digital weights and streamed classes to replicate gym weight stations. Founded in March 2015 by Orady and headquartered in San Francisco, the company saw sales grow 800% from December 2019 to December 2020. Tonal has faced delivery delays of 10–12 weeks and has been ramping production, increasing headcount and air-shipping devices from Taiwan to the U.S. The company plans to spend its new capital on marketing and brand awareness, expand its catalog of streamed fitness classes, and scale operations and its supply chain. Tonal has also expanded its physical presence via a Nordstrom partnership (at least 40 locations) and expects 60 physical locations by the end of 2021. Management additions include a new COO, Chief Strategy Officer and CTO to support growth; leadership says an IPO is a long-term goal but offered no timeline. Tonal builds a connected home strength-training system that pairs a reflective display with resistance technology to approximate dumbbell- and barbell-style workouts. The company differentiates itself by focusing on strength training rather than only cardio or mirror-style fitness devices. Tonal has pursued partnerships and trials, including work with the Mayo Clinic on physical therapy studies with results expected early next year, and deployments at hotels and resorts such as Andaz Scottsdale, the Waldorf Astoria Boca Raton, and JW Marriott Anaheim. The product has attracted athlete investors and ambassadors who cite its use during COVID-19 lockdowns. The home-fitness market is increasingly crowded (notably Lululemon’s $500M acquisition of Mirror), but investor interest remains strong amid pandemic-driven demand. The company is Bay Area–based and has raised significant outside capital to scale distribution and trials. Tonal produces a wall-mounted strength-training machine that uses electromagnetism to simulate and control weight and delivers on-demand training through a connected software platform. The machine retails for $2,995 and the company offers a $49/month membership for personal training sessions, recommended programs and workouts. Since launching its product in 2018, Tonal reports virtually no returns and says customer care proactively works with members to ensure satisfaction. The company says the majority of customers are aged 30–55, evenly split by gender, and live in or near the top 10 U.S. metro markets. Tonal plans to expand software personalization, build new workout categories and enable fitness experiences when users travel. It is also expanding marketing and retail presence (currently a flagship San Francisco store and an upcoming Newport Beach pop-up) and hiring across hardware, software, design, video production and marketing. Tonal sells a wall-mounted strength-training system that uses electromagnetism to simulate and control weight and applies machine learning to adjust resistance. The device includes a built-in personal trainer and programming available for a $49/month membership. Tonal determines a user’s baseline strength with a 10-minute test and continuously monitors rep quality to dynamically adjust resistance during workouts. The unit mounts to your wall and retails for $2,995. CEO and founder Aly Orady demonstrated the product at Tonal’s San Francisco headquarters. The company positions itself alongside connected-home fitness startups like Peloton and Mirror.

Participated · Series E · Jan 2022

Verana Health aggregates de-identified electronic health record data from more than 20,000 clinicians to create high-quality real-world evidence datasets for the life-sciences industry. Its AI-powered curation technology structures and validates data in ophthalmology, urology, and neurology, and, through its merger with COTA, now expands deeply into oncology. The combined company accesses more than 95 million patient records, including over 10 million oncology patients, and partners with an extended network of 30+ academic medical centers. These datasets support biopharma customers across clinical trial design, regulatory submissions, health economics and outcomes research, and market-access work, while also offering advisory services for clinicians’ MIPS submissions. The integration of COTA’s high-fidelity oncology data is expected to speed up data processing and deliver ready-to-analyze datasets to research teams. Verana Health currently serves 17 of the world’s top 20 biopharma companies, underscoring strong commercial traction. The newly raised capital will fund platform expansion and deeper clinical data capabilities. No revenue figures or profitability metrics were disclosed in the article.

Participated · Series B · May 2021

Zoe sends at‑home kits for blood and fecal samples to measure blood fat, blood sugar, and gut microbiome health, then scores every food on a 0–100 scale to provide personalized recommendations. The service teaches users food swaps and combinations and tracks progress with continued microbiome testing. The company has published about 60 peer‑reviewed papers and completed a randomized controlled trial published in Nature Medicine in May 2024 that showed improvements in biological markers and user-reported outcomes after three to four months. Products are available across the U.S. except New York due to regulatory challenges, and Zoe plans to use new funding to expand its U.S. presence and invest in marketing. Financially, Zoe reported a paid customer base of more than 100,000, with most customers on a 12‑month subscription priced at $29 per month ($348 per year), and the company said it had virtually no revenue two years ago. The company is leveraging scientific validation and new capital to scale its product in the U.S. market. Zoe offers a personalised nutrition program that begins with comprehensive at-home tests analyzing blood sugar, blood fat responses, and the gut microbiome. It combines those results with artificial intelligence and data from thousands of participants in its proprietary ZOE PREDICT studies to generate personalised scores for any food an individual eats. Members use in-app tools, lessons, and expert nutrition support to build sustainable daily habits tailored to their bodies and health goals. The company was founded by Professor Tim Spector, data science leader Jonathan Wolf, and entrepreneur George Hadjigeorgiou, and is based in Boston and London. Zoe plans to use the new funding to scale its operations and science to reach millions of people globally. The recent $2.5M round brings total invested to over $92M. Zoe began with a viral COVID-19 self-reporting app and has refocused on its original mission of building a nutrition study of the gut microbiome and delivering personalized dietary insights via its app. Its core product combines user-reported diet and lifestyle data with gut microbiome tests, blood-fat tests and optional continuous glucose monitors to generate individualized reports. The company charges an initial assessment fee (around £299.99) that includes testing and a personalized report, and offers memberships ranging from £59.99/month down to £24.99/month with an annual plan. Zoe reports roughly 50,000 active paying users and nearly 5 million people who have submitted free self-reported nutritional data; it also has a community of about 2 million and a waiting list it plans to scale to 250,000 people. Future plans include expanding research into sleep, mood, activity, menopause and other health areas, deeper integrations with third-party hardware (e.g., Apple Watch) and running larger randomized studies to validate results. The company is positioning itself to scale operations and onboarding to meet accelerating customer demand. Zoe builds a consumer program centered on a home testing kit and app that analyzes microbiome data, blood lipids and blood sugar to generate personalized food scores and meal advice. Its first product, launched in the U.S. in September, requires participants to provide stool samples, perform finger-prick blood tests and wear a continuous glucose monitor; the program costs around $360 (collected in six instalments). Zoe uses big data and machine learning trained on large-scale microbiome studies and collaborations with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Stanford Medicine, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and King’s College London to predict individual responses to food. The company positions the product as a general-wellness tool rather than a regulated medical device and does not offer medical diagnosis or treatment. Zoe cites promising interim trial outcomes (90% of participants reported more energy, 80% felt less hunger, and an average 11-pound weight loss) but has not disclosed participant counts for those metrics. The business says demand is high and is operating a waitlist, and it points to its prior COVID-19 symptom app (about 5M users) as an example of large-scale data-driven research. New funding will be used to accelerate rollout, with a U.K. launch planned this year and other geographies targeted for 2022, plus continued hiring in engineering and science.

Participated · Series A · Oct 2015

Gritstone Oncology develops personalized cancer immunotherapies built around a tumor antigen identification platform (Gritstone EDGE) and a neoantigen delivery system. The company leverages deep learning and extensive human tumor molecular analysis to predict and deploy patient-specific neoantigens. Its lead program targeting tumor-specific neoantigens is expected to enter clinical trials in mid-2018 in non-small cell lung cancer and gastric cancer. Proceeds from the financing will advance the EDGE platform and Gritstone’s pipeline and fund completion of a 43,000 square-foot cGMP manufacturing facility in Pleasanton, CA. The facility is intended to form the nucleus of manufacturing for personalized therapeutics, with first investigational products expected to be manufactured in 2018. Gritstone launched in October 2015 and is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area with certain functions in Cambridge, MA. Gritstone Oncology develops personalized cancer immunotherapies centered on tumor-specific neo-antigens (TSNAs). The company focuses initially on discovering and developing TSNA-based therapies for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). It operates out of San Francisco, CA and Cambridge, MA. Gritstone intends to use new funding to advance discovery and development programs. Leadership includes co-founder, president and CEO Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., and co-founders Tim Chan, Naiyer Rizvi, Jean-Charles Soria, Graham Lord and Mark Cobbold. The company raised a $102M Series A to support these efforts.