Participated · Equity · Jun 2026

Portal builds a proprietary mechanoporation-based platform to enable efficient, scalable delivery of RNA, gene editors, probes, and other molecules into hard-to-transfect cells across diverse cell types and workflows. The company targets applications across novel drug discovery workflows, multi-perturbation AI data generation, and next-generation cell therapies, and integrates with high-throughput robotics and GMP manufacturing systems. Portal reports commercial traction with more than 100 customer sites, including public collaborations or use by Microsoft, Merck, AbbVie, Mass General Brigham, the Ragon Institute, and Purdue University. Use cases highlighted include high-throughput, physiologically relevant screening, generation of model-training biological data, and same-day circRNA-based multifunctional CAR-T production at the point of care. DARPA has expanded an initial $8M contract and is supporting commercialization through its EEI program, underscoring validation for Portal's point-of-care cell therapy manufacturing efforts. The company states it has achieved meaningful commercial revenue and technical validation from large pharma and academic partners.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2025

Cascade Space is building the Cascade Portal, an end-to-end platform for satellite communication system design, test, and operations. The company recently open-sourced spacelink, a Python library with functions for communication system analysis used in the Portal. Cascade says the tools are intended to accelerate communication system design and reduce a major bottleneck for companies operating in lunar and deep space. The team includes veteran space engineers from SpaceX and Astra. The company will use the funding to accelerate development of its platform and related infrastructure. Cascade Space was founded in 2025 and is based in San Francisco.

Participated · Series A · Jun 2025

Parallel Bio has developed an organoid-based immune system platform that combines lymph-node organoids with AI and robotics to model human immune responses at scale. Its Clinical Trial in a Dish offering is being used by pharmaceutical partners to test safety and efficacy of immunotherapies and drugs across diverse human-derived organoids. The company has signed eight pharmaceutical partners, including three Fortune 500 companies, who are testing more than 50 drugs and immunotherapies on the platform. A reported preclinical study with partner Centivax validated broad humoral and T cell responses to its Centi‑Flu universal flu vaccine candidate and supported Centivax’s move to manufacturing for human trials. Parallel Bio plans to use the new capital to scale AI and automation, expand its scientific and engineering team, and support growing pharmaceutical partnerships. The company is based in Cambridge, Mass., and was founded in 2021. Parallel Bio developed an immune organoid platform that combines immune organoids, machine learning, and robotics to model human immune responses at population scale. The company says its platform can produce antibodies against any disease target in 21 days and has discovered eight human high‑affinity antibodies for cancer and infectious diseases. Parallel validated reproducible modeling across diverse patient backgrounds, built a large proprietary biobank, filed IP on key technologies, and demonstrated high‑throughput vaccine response screening. It plans to bring the immune platform to market with pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners to accelerate drug discovery and reduce reliance on animal testing. The company raised a $4.3 million seed round to accelerate commercialization and proof‑of‑concept work. Parallel positions its technology as able to shift drug development outcomes (claiming it can flip a 95% clinical‑trial failure rate toward success) and to enable discovery of organoid‑derived therapeutics and autoimmune disease models.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2024

Circe uses advanced gas fermentation to convert CO2 into complex molecules, positioning its platform as a carbon-negative alternative to plant- and animal-derived fats and oils. The company has demonstrated prototypes across confectionery, dairy, sugars, protein, polymers, and biofuels and is currently focused on fats and oils due to their broad industrial use. Its pilot plant in Waltham, MA, accelerated by an ARPA-E contract, will move production out of the lab and enable scale-up of carbon-negative molecule manufacturing. Circe reports that its process consumes 3 kg of CO2 for every 1 kg of oil produced, enabling fully carbon-negative outputs. The company is pursuing partnerships to co-develop products across oils, sugars, proteins, and polymers and aims to secure supply chains with drop-in, carbon-negative alternatives. Circe is based in Boston, MA, and is a spin-off of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, holding a worldwide exclusive license to commercialize the underlying bioproduction technology. Circe commercializes a Wyss Institute fermentation platform that programs microbes to consume greenhouse gases and produce industrial molecules. Its platform has produced triglycerides (used to make fats, butter, oils), sugar‑like molecules, biodegradable plastics, and biofuels using only CO2, water, and electricity as inputs. The company has used its triglycerides to make the world's first gas fermentation‑derived chocolate and is exploring other fats including milkfat and palm oil for food, cosmetics, and fuel applications. Circe emerged from work in Pamela Silver’s lab and was spun out of Harvard after being nurtured at the Wyss Institute; co‑founders include Shannon Nangle and Marika Ziesack. The Wyss Institute designated the platform an Institute Project in 2021 and provided additional funding and validation support to de‑risk the technology. Circe has raised over $8 million from venture investors and previously received $3.2 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA‑E ECOSynBio program while still at Wyss.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2023

KittyCAD develops advanced tools for hardware design. The company is based in Malibu, CA. It has closed a $5M Series Seed financing. The round was led by Venrex Partners. Other participants included USC's Viterbi School of Engineering, Gaingels, Kelvin Beachum, Matt Terrell, Undeterred Capital, Liquid 2, Tom Preston-Werner's family office, Madrona Venture Group, Bernie Lagrange, and Nat Friedman. The article does not disclose operating metrics, use of proceeds, or other financial details.