• Octave

  Participated · Series C · Sep 2025

  Octave Bioscience is a commercial-stage precision care company whose flagship product is the Octave MSDA test, a multi-analyte blood-based assay for monitoring MS disease activity. The company reports broad physician adoption with over 325 prescribers, more than 19,000 patient tests delivered to date, and in-network reimbursement covering over 75 million contracted lives at favorable rates. Proceeds from the recent financings will support continued commercialization of the MSDA test and advancement of the company’s Parkinson’s disease pipeline. Octave describes its platform as providing quantitative, clinically actionable insights to improve disease monitoring and treatment decisions. The company also notes a partnership with the Michael J. Fox Foundation on Parkinson’s disease efforts. Octave is based in Menlo Park, Calif. Octave Bioscience is a commercial-stage precision-medicine company that delivers a Precision Care Solution for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases. Its solution includes the Octave MSDA Test, a multivariate blood test for multiple sclerosis, enhanced MRI analytics and protocols, and a clinical care program that connects patients with MS-certified nurse care partners. The Precision Care Solution is currently in use in over 50 clinics across the United States. Octave plans to expand its biomarker-based approach into Parkinson’s disease and will use a $10M grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation to discover, develop, and validate a custom multiplexed protein biomarker panel to measure Parkinson’s disease activity and progression in the clinic. The company was selected for the MJFF grant based on its track record in biomarker research and prior commercialization of a multiplexed assay panel for multiple sclerosis. Octave combines blood biomarkers, imaging, and clinical insights to provide longitudinal and holistic patient metrics intended to enable informed care, shared decision making, and better patient outcomes. Octave offers a multimodal precision care solution that combines blood biomarkers, expanded MRI analytics, and clinical insights to objectively measure MS disease activity, progression, and severity. Its platform includes the first multivariate blood test for MS disease activity, enhanced imaging protocols, and a clinical care program linking patients with MS nurse practitioners in real time. Octave commercially launched in late 2022 and is in use at multiple MS Centers of Excellence, academic centers, and high-volume independent clinics. The company is expanding physician partnerships and providing capabilities to pharma companies and health plans. Octave is also committed to building collaborations across a broader range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Financially, the company announced a $30M extension to its Series B to accelerate commercialization and broaden patient access to its solution. Octave Bioscience is developing a Comprehensive Care Platform to provide a quantitative, objective measurement system designed to expand clinical insights in neurodegenerative disease, beginning with multiple sclerosis (MS). The platform integrates multiple layers of insight: blood-based biomarkers to assess inflammation and immune modulation, advanced MRI readings and interpretation for CNS-level insights, and real-time symptom tracking via mobile tools, sensors and wearables. All data are integrated into protocols, supported by decision‑support tools and presented in a dashboard that enables individual and population views for better stratification and contextual interventions. Octave plans to use these capabilities to provide measurement and management tools for physicians and precision tools and services for pharmaceutical companies to better characterize therapies and optimize pipeline programs. The company emphasizes longitudinal perspectives on disease progression and aims to expand the platform’s applicability across a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases. Octave is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Octave Bioscience is completing development of a comprehensive, first-in-class care management platform for neurodegenerative disease, beginning with multiple sclerosis. The platform integrates blood-based biomarkers, enhanced MRI insights, patient monitoring via mobile tools and sensors, and a nurse-led care partner program to produce objective, quantitative measurements. Those measurement layers feed into care pathway models, analytical support systems, decision-support tools and a dashboard to provide longitudinal, population and individual views for clinicians. Octave plans to expand clinical data, initiate early commercial activities, and begin serving neurologists, MS patients and health plans. The company highlights potential application beyond MS to Parkinson’s disease, ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. Octave Bioscience is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

• Lightsail

  Led · Series B · Mar 2016

  Led by CEO Gideon Stein, LightSail provides an adaptive literacy solution for K-12 education that uses predictive algorithms to match students to a customized library of texts. The reading experience incorporates persuasive learning technologies designed to encourage students to read more texts, for longer durations, and with improved comprehension. The solution offers nearly 5,000 texts from more than 60 publishers, with assessment questions embedded within every text, measures literacy growth in real time, and automatically adapts each student’s library to their precise reading level. LightSail also provides real-time insights to students and educators on metrics such as reading stamina, comprehension, and reading level growth. The company is partnered with more than 500 schools and districts, including the New York City Department of Education, Los Angeles Unified School District, Boston Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, and Evergreen Public Schools. LightSail intends to use the new funding to hire edtech talent and expand product adoption through increased sales and marketing efforts. The company has raised more than $23M to date. LightSail offers tablet-based libraries of over 80,000 standards-aligned texts from more than 400 publishers, each embedded with assessment questions and student-comprehension data. CEO and founder Gideon Stein said the company has surpassed 100,000 student users, up from 75,000 as of March 24. LightSail announced a $3.5 million financing round led by Scott Cook, bringing total funding to date to $12.2 million. The company cites partnerships with large districts including the NYCDOE, LAUSD, Chicago Public Schools, and Denver Public Schools, as well as numerous rural and suburban districts. The majority of the new funding will be used to expand LightSail's District Partnerships team and marketing activities. Over the next 12 months LightSail plans to broaden content available to schools, launch a parent portal to engage families, and conduct multiple efficacy trials with nationally recognized research and academic firms to document student achievement gains.

No current team members are available.