Participated · Series C · Apr 2022

Syllable is an AI-enabled healthcare automation company based in Sunnyvale, Calif., led by CEO Kobus Jooste. The company offers the Syllable Patient Assistant, an intelligent voice solution that engages patients via phone, web, and SMS. The assistant connects patients with information and care and helps them navigate healthcare options with empathy, transparency, and intelligence from the moment they request care. Syllable targets health system call centers and medical practice offices as primary use cases. The company raised $40M in a Series C to further develop its assistant for those settings. The round included participation from existing investors Oak HC/FT, Section32, and Verily. Syllable has built an AI platform that answers every call received by a hospital and enables automated workflows and self-service options to help patients find and take the correct next step in their healthcare journey. The platform also seamlessly introduces patients to a human agent for situations that require a human touch for successful call resolution. In March 2020 Syllable launched a COVID-19 assistant and has since expanded that assistant to support vaccine distribution, including outbound voice and SMS campaigns. Since 2017 Syllable’s solutions have been in use by some of the largest and most respected healthcare providers across the United States. The company plans to use new funding to scale partnerships with health systems, deploy with payers, and grow its team. The product focus is on modernizing the healthcare contact center to reduce long hold times, transfers, and dead ends that frustrate patients.

Participated · Seed · Mar 2022

Zephyr AI, based in McLean, Va., develops fast, explainable artificial intelligence and data-federation tools to advance precision medicine in oncology and cardiometabolic disease. The company is building improved data federation capabilities and machine learning algorithms and is deploying one of the largest clinicogenomic datasets spanning multiple disease states and data partners. Zephyr AI says it will use the new capital to enhance analytical speed and to fortify its training and validation datasets. The funds will also support expansion of the company’s scientific and commercial teams to accelerate delivery of its growing pipeline of insights to market. The team combines software engineers and biologists to generate translatable insights and build tools for patients, providers, and researchers. Zephyr AI has had two abstracts accepted for presentation at the AACR annual meeting in April 2024. Zephyr AI develops a proprietary suite of AI and data-science technologies that ingest complex, disparate healthcare data to generate translatable insights for precision medicine and drug discovery. The company emphasizes a three‑pronged approach: multi‑dimensional datasets, transparent AI, and analyses within structured biological networks and longitudinal outcomes. Since its founding in 2021 by Red Cell Partners, Zephyr has built a multidisciplinary team of data scientists, software engineers, and computational and molecular biologists. Zephyr prioritizes industry partnerships to access and maximally utilize broad healthcare datasets. The company aims to produce tools and products to support patients and providers, with focus areas including diabetes and cancer. Financially, Zephyr closed an $18.5 million seed round to expand dataset curation, refine machine‑learning models, and derive actionable insights for patient care and drug discovery.

Participated · Series B · Oct 2021

Culture Biosciences is a San Francisco-based company offering an integrated bioprocess development platform that combines automated laboratory hardware with cloud-native software. Its flagship Stratyx 250 system delivers scalable, digitally connected bioprocess capacity for biologics, cell therapy, and other advanced workflows. The accompanying Console software centralizes experimental data, making it accessible and contextualized for R&D teams across locations. The company is augmenting this platform with AI-driven capabilities such as predictive modeling, advanced data integration, and automated analysis tools aimed at shortening development cycles and sharpening process decisions. Culture Biosciences enables customers to run, monitor, and optimize experiments remotely, effectively moving biomanufacturing into the cloud. Proceeds from its latest funding will help roll out the Stratyx 250 commercially while expanding AI features within the Console platform. The article did not provide specific revenue, customer, or usage metrics.

Participated · Seed · May 2021

The Public Health Company commercialized a modeling approach into subscription software that combines genomic variant analysis, epidemiologic investigations and conventional public-health data to help organizations detect, contain and manage disease outbreaks. Its platform automates analytic tools so decision-makers do not need in-house mathematicians, data scientists or infectious-disease doctors to interpret results. The company targets both government partners and private-sector enterprises with global operations—risk and continuity teams for warehouses, factories, insurers and hedge funds are cited as potential customers. Founder Charity Dean developed the underlying model during her public-health work and participated in state-level pandemic modeling efforts. The startup was formed last August and has grown to about 20 employees. Financially, it has secured $8 million in seed funding from institutional investors. The team positions disease risk management as a core continuity and insurance consideration analogous to cybersecurity.

Participated · Series B · Jan 2020

Mammoth Biosciences is a diagnostic technology startup leveraging CRISPR to create rapid, accurate tests for infectious diseases. Its lead product is the DETECTR platform, a CRISPR-based SARS-CoV-2 assay that has already secured Emergency Use Authorization at UCSF and is being positioned for broader commercial laboratory deployment. The company’s approach differs from conventional PCR by using CRISPR enzymes to identify viral genetic material, potentially easing current U.S. testing bottlenecks. Mammoth is also collaborating with GlaxoSmithKline to build a handheld, disposable COVID-19 test capable of delivering results in roughly 20 minutes at the point of care. With fresh support from the NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) program, the startup plans to scale manufacturing of DETECTR to achieve a “multi-fold increase in testing capacity” across the United States. No revenue, user, or other financial metrics were disclosed in the article.