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Big News at Pack Ventures 🚀🐺🧬 We’re thrilled to welcome two outstanding Venture Partners to the Pack Ventures team! Jenny Cronin, PhD and William Canestaro, PhD are two of the most respected and well-connected figures in the Seattle biotech landscape. They strengthen our mission of building the leading pre-seed biotech fund in Seattle—a city we believe is one of the most important biotech markets in the world for the convergence of A.I. and Biotech! Seattle isn’t just home to world-class institutions like the Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington, Fred Hutch, and Seattle Children's —it’s also a global hub where AI and biotech converge. From David Baker’s recent #NobelPrize to the cutting-edge work coming out of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, Microsoft, Amazon, and the Allen Institute and Ai2 , the depth of A.I. talent here is extraordinary. At Pack Ventures, we’re doubling down on the Seattle and UW innovation ecosystem. Our belief is simple: the next generation of industry-defining biotech companies will be built here—and we’re here to help founders make that future a reality. With our new Venture Partners on board, we’re better equipped than ever to support early-stage founders transforming science into scalable solutions. #Biotech #VentureCapital #AIxBio #SeattleInnovation #PackVentures #UWSpinouts #TechBio

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FemWealth Issue 206 highlights 💌 In the Spotlight 💸 Co-founded and led by Estelle Giraud, PhD, Trellis Health is a digital health platform on a mission to empower women with personalized, proactive care. The Seattle and San Francisco-based startup raised $1.8M in Pre-Seed funding. Startup News: - Co-founded by Mimoza Bytyqi, hellocare.ai, a US startup providing an AI-assisted virtual care delivery platform transforming hospital care models and operations, raised $47M - Co-founded and led by Bo Li, Virtue AI, a San Francisco startup that enables enterprises to deploy generative AI without compromising security, safety, or privacy, secured $30M in combined Seed and Series A funding  - Co-founded by Laura McKay, PolicyMe, a Canadian insuretech startup offering critical illness insurance as well as health and dental coverage, raised C$30  - Co-founded by Lyndsey Bunting, Blue Onion, a New York startup offering a subledger designed to provide retailers with accurate financial data, optimize operations, and automate accounting workflow, closed $10M in Series A - Founded and led by Chiara Petrioli, WSENSE, a Rome, Italy-based startup providing monitoring and communicating technologies for underwater IoT, secured €7.2M  - Co-founded by Emma Burrows, Portia AI, a London-based company offering business customers a library of tools for building and deploying their own AI agents in-house, raised £4.4M in Seed  - Co-founded by Sneha Sivakumar and Anushka Nijhawan, Spur, a New York City-based startup enabling commerce retailers and travel booking platforms with AI-powered quality testing that emulates real consumer shopping behavior, raised $4.5M  - Co-founded by Sally Liang, Youlify, a US revenue cycle management startup, raised $4.3M in Seed -  Founded by Jess Woodward-Jones, Vizzy | B Corp™, a London-based talent platform that provides companies with personalised digital CVs, raised £3.65M in Seed - Co-founded and led by Anastasia Kuskova, beSirius, an Amsterdam-based startup providing an AI-powered sustainability intelligence platform for heavy industries, closed €3M in Seed - Co-founded by Maya Kale, Moom Health, a Singapore-based women’s health supplement brand, secured S$3.5M in Pre-series A  - Co-founded and led by Kinga Matuła, QurieGen, a Netherlands-based company developing advanced AI-based technology aimed at accelerating drug development progress in oncology, raised a €2.2M Pre-Seed - Co-founded and led by Amira Nakouri, Klaimy, a Paris-based AI-powered SaaS platform for health and life insurers, raised €1.2M in Pre-Seed - Co-founded by Oksana Tolmatshova and Katrin Isotamm, Esgrid, a Tallinn-based ESG risk management platform, raised €900k in Pre-Seed https://lnkd.in/eKDgrjGf

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Don't Build a Better Wheat Farm" - Why Defensibility Stakes Are Higher in Deep Tech Just published a new piece on my "Ignore the Confusion" blog, building on thoughtful insights from Eric Ver Ploeg at Tunitas Ventures about startup defensibility. Eric's core thesis: Too many startups pitch like wheat farmers - "huge TAM, slow incumbents, growing market, domain expertise" - but fail to think through long-term defensibility until it's too late. From a deep tech perspective, the stakes are even higher: ** Unlike software, deep tech founders must commit to defensibility strategies from day one - their funding depends on it ** Patent vs. trade secret decisions are often difficult to reverse and shape your entire competitive strategy ** Even "picks and shovels" providers (the tools that make industries more efficient) become commodities without proper moats The key insight that resonates: Defensibility can't be retrofitted. Whether you're building software or deep tech, your moat must be architected into the business model from the start. Thanks to Eric Ver Ploeg for sharing these insights on startup strategy and letting me build on his framework from a deep tech lens. Read the full post: https://lnkd.in/dEj_iF-Q #DeepTech #StartupStrategy #Defensibility #VentureCapital #Innovation

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DCVC is thrilled to be partnering with the founders of Proxima, Zach Carpenter and Luca Naef, as well as Zak Kanter and the whole team at the company, to make biomolecular interactions programmable. DCVC led the $80M Series Seed financing at Proxima, our largest TechBio investment to date for any investment through Series A, along with NVIDIA NVentures as well as Magnetic Ventures, who both partnered with DCVC previously at Relation.

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One of things DCVC looks for in iTechBio companies: early commercial progress, worth billions, from biopharma partners. It’s one of the reasons we invested in Proxima.

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🧬 This week’s Austin Bio & Health Roundup has funding, recognition, regional momentum, & new PitchBook healthtech data giving us a peek under the hood of the sector. 🧬 💰 Funding & Capital Signals Hello Patient, a conversational AI platform for clinics, closed a $22.5M Series A led by Scale Venture Partners and included participation from Austin-based 8VC, who also joined their seed round. You need to check out their announcement video. Alex is in top form! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins A second piece of Hello Patient news. They launched their platform into veterinary practices as well. 📊 Data PitchBook published an Emerging Tech Research report on Healthtech VC Trends. In 1H 2025, healthtech startups raised $8B, putting it on pace to beat 2023 and 2024 and possibly 2022. Exits are at $4.9B, suggesting this could be the highest year since 2021. Top 5 subsectors over the last 12 months: • Telehealth: $3.2B over 174 deals • EHRs & Clinical Information and Analytics: $2.2B over 76 deals • Care Management: $2.2B over 113 deals • Operations: $1.7B over 84 deals • Analytics: $1.4B over 104 deals 🏆 Recognition Phantom Neuro featured in "25 Healthcare Devices I Fell in Love With" on David Shulkin’s blog. Shulkin is the former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. 🤠 Texas Bio Triangle Houston: The Rice Biotech Launch Pad announced another investment, this time from Houston-based Carnrite Ventures. Houston funding Houston! What’s Next? 🤠 🚀 🦾 🧬

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#AmTech Weekly Roundup:    Citizen Health raised $30 million in Series A funding from 8VC, Headline, and Transformation Capital. Citizen is building a healthcare advocacy and navigation platform for patients with chronic illnesses.  Farid Vij, Nasha Fitter Vulcan Elements raised $65 million in Series A funding from Altimeter and One Investment Management. Vulcan is reshoring production of rare-earth magnets, which are used in everything from drones to semiconductor fabrications to hard drives and automotive vehicles.   John Maslin, Piotr Kulik GoodShip raised $25 million in Series B funding from Greenfield Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Ironspring Ventures. Goodship is building an AI-powered freight management platform, analyzing shipping and operations data to reduce transportation costs and lateness.   Ryan Soskin, David Tsai #SupplyChain #Healthcare #CriticalMinerals #VC

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Worth a read if you're tracking where reproductive medicine is headed. Inside Reproductive Health brings together research from across the field—our work on sequential automated systems achieving first-ever live births, Columbia's breakthrough dish prep technology, advances in AI-powered sperm selection, and remote ICSI capabilities that earned Reproductive BioMedicine Online's Robert G. Edwards award for best original paper of 2025. What stood out to me: IRH documents how automation has moved "beyond theoretical promise" to clinical reality. Five healthy babies from Conceivable Life Sciences' integrated automated workflow. AI sperm selection exceeding manual performance. Remote procedures transcending geography. The data is compelling. The trajectory is clear. Full piece in Inside Reproductive Health: [Link in comments] #IVF #HealthTech #ReproductiveMedicine #AIAutomation #Biotech #InsideReproductiveHealth #IRHIndustryIntel #Embryology #FertilityInnovation

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Missed my riveting in person workshop last week hosted by Life Sciences BC and Innovate BC? Here is a snapshot slide. This slide is loaded with details important for founders seeking VC investment to understand the 'inner machinations' of venture capital fund management and portfolio construction. Many of these features are legally hard wired into the LPA (Limited Partners' Agreement). * Funds typically have a 10 year life cycle. * There is a defined period (3-5 years) when new investments can be added to the portfolio. * Follow-on investments are made if/when there is reserved capital. Rule of thumb is ~ 40% of the committed capital is held in reserve. * Capital is called from the Limited Partners; for some funds it is on a schedule, others as required to fund operations and investments. * Capital calls are 'lumpy' - higher % calls earlier in the fund life. * If liquidity is not happening in the portfolio, GP's will seek ways to generate returns for their LP's within the term of the fund (e.g. secondaries). Understanding the VC side of the table will help entrepreneurs understand some of the reasons that a VC will say no to a deal, as well as YES. Timing. It matters a lot. #WebSummit2025 #RoadToWebSummit #R2WSV #VentureCapital #VC #healthcare #healthtech #impactinvesting #TeacherBrenda

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"Build the event you wish existed" That's what we at Monadical did last week at #NYTW. We wanted an AI Engineers discussion for Engineers. There's always a lot of events out there for VCs to network, or for startups to learn about G2M, but very little on lessons learned from actual engineers in the field. So that's the event we hosted. Big thank yous to our awesome panel, Roy Pereira, Ben Cohen and Corey J. Gallon. Here's the key takeaways and the AI tools we're using. 🚀 All three panelists independently called AI Agents the most transformative LLM application they’ve used. They specifically called out Claude 3.5 Sonnet for its accuracy and reliability. 🪨 We dug into how LLMs are “jagged”, not general. They can be shockingly good at some tasks and completely fail at others. Everyone agreed: good evaluations are critical (and hard.) 🧪 Corey noted how public benchmarks and reality are two different things. Most public evals are saturated or gamed. ♊ Ben emphasized that AI projects are actually two projects: building the tool and building the evaluation process. 🧱 We explored how falling dev costs may impact startup defensibility and labor demand. Roy shared that founders are already shifting strategies in response. ⚒️ In a world of daily AI launches, the panel discussed how they decide what’s worth attention, and what’s just noise. They called out tools like Goose, Aider, Claude Code, and Monadical’s own Cubbi, which helps run agentic workflows safely in dev environments. (links in the comments). CTA: What would you want to hear in an AI Applied Engineering talk you attended?

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The University of California, Berkeley's biotech incubator, Bakar Labs, is expanding with the construction of a new six-story, 72,000-square-foot building designed to support growing biotech companies. In collaboration with the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), the IGI-Bakar Labs facility is expected to be completed in 2028 and will accommodate up to 14 companies that have outgrown their initial startup spaces. The first three floors will provide office space for IGI, a genome engineering nonprofit founded by Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, while the upper floors and a rooftop conference area will be dedicated to Bakar Labs. The goal is to retain successful startups in Berkeley as they scale, strengthening local innovation by keeping founders connected to the university ecosystem. Bakar Labs, operated by QB3 (a biosciences institute spanning multiple UC campuses), has been instrumental in nurturing early-stage biotech companies. Notable recent tenants include Renasant Bio and startups founded by Doudna herself. This project is part of broader efforts supporting biotech innovation and custom gene-editing therapies for rare pediatric diseases, highlighted by IGI's collaborations with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and other UC campuses.

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"I love this job, honestly... The ability to translate science into real-world applications, that's the thing... To be able to play some small role in that... I feel incredibly fortunate to do this." In Part 3 of my conversation with Johnny Hu, Principal at Menlo Ventures, we explore the passion that drives venture capitalists who help transform scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact and why he considers it "one of the best jobs in the world." Below are some highlights from our conversation: – 🤝 The ideal board-founder relationship — "The board should be your partner with you... We are there to help you think about strategic decisions" and why this partnership model is crucial for startup success – 💡 Decision-making as an entrepreneur — "Your job as entrepreneur is to ultimately listen and then decide and own that decision" while balancing advice with your own intuition – ⚖ The "right amount of risk" philosophy — Finding the sweet spot of "two or three miracles" in your startup journey rather than zero (not ambitious enough) or ten (likely impossible) – 🔄 Working backwards from the end goal — "You start from the end and then you work towards the beginning" as a strategic approach to company building – 🔬 The operational discipline needed to extend runway — Why seemingly small decisions about equipment purchases and resource allocation can make or break a company's future This conversation is jam packed with valuable insights for both founders and investors on what it takes to translate scientific innovation into meaningful impact. Don't sleep on it! Apple Podcasts & Spotify links in the comments below! 👇🏽 #biotechnology #lifesciences #podcast

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Biosphere raised millions from Founders Fund and Lowercarbon Capital to Unleash Industrial Biomanufacturing at scale. Biosphere's cofounder Arye Lipman joined our latest podcast to discuss: - what is biomanufacturing - how Biosphere's UV bioreactors are 10x better than traditional bioreactors - what America with 10x cheaper biomanufacturing looks like - can we grow a steak without a cow? - is biomanufacturing "woke climate" or American Dynamism? - how Biosphere is working with the DOD - MAGA's view on biomanufacturing - Consciousness, dolphins and the CIA Check it out!

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Investing in biology today feels like investing in software 20 years ago. It’s exciting to see generalist and top-tier funds now announcing major moves into biotech. Matthew Mandel's post at Union Square Ventures nails it: “AI models make it easier to explore biological design space, synthetic biology makes it possible to physically implement novel hypotheses, and lab automation is tightening the loop from software to physical feedback.” At Draper, we’ve long believed biology is entering its software moment, and we’re now seeing the rest of the investing world catch up. You can see the same patterns now in biology that we saw in software: 1. Talent Migration In the early 2000s, top minds left banks and academia to join startups like Google, Facebook, and Stripe. Today, the smartest engineers, scientists, and ML researchers are leaving Big Tech and Big Pharma to build at the intersection of computation and biology. 2. Abstraction of Complexity AWS abstracted away hardware, making global-scale software possible with minimal upfront cost. Now, AI-first lab automation and programmable cell platforms are abstracting away traditional LONG R&D cycles. 3. Developer Enablement The rise of cloud and APIs enabled anyone to build software from their laptop. Now, CRISPR, cloud labs, and AI models are turning wet lab workflows into code. At Draper Associates, we’ve been investing in frontier biotech for years, because we believe the next wave of breakthrough bio companies will be those building programmable, scalable technologies that unlock entirely new categories in health. ➡️ What excites me most as an investor: - Programmable biology that lets us write and edit at the cellular level, just like software - AI-native platforms that compress discovery timelines, reduce trial-and-error, and unlock novel biological design space - Neurotechnology and human-machine interfaces that restore lost function and push the boundaries of eliminating neurodegenerative diseases - Regenerative medicine and cell therapies (often based on cellular reprogramming) that move beyond symptom management to actual reversal of disease - Bio-infrastructure that scales health innovation: from synthesis and delivery to testing and manufacturing 💫 We’ve backed companies including: → Syntax Bio – programming efficient stem cell differentiation, bringing a 120+ day trial-and-error process down to 2 weeks → CellCo - The Cell Company – building the operating system for cells - using AI and synthetic biology to create better therapeutics → HexemBio – reversing stem cell aging to restore regenerative potential → NewLimit – reprogramming the epigenome to extend human healthspan → Potato – autonomous AI scientists accelerating wet lab discovery We’re backing the infrastructure and interfaces for the next biotech era. Glad to see more capital entering the space. It’s still early, but the shift is happening. #Biotech #Longevity #SyntheticBiology #VC #DeepTech #DraperAssociates

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According to Crunchbase, women-only founding teams received less than 2% of global venture funding. Yet across sectors, women-led companies continue to outperform on ROI. At DFX, we meet hundreds of founders each month. Innovation scales faster when capital reaches diverse hands. Always tracking investors actually funding women-led innovation. I found a list from Ivelina Dineva, funds actively writing checks for female founders across AI, Fintech, Climate, Health, and beyond. Here are funds worth keeping on your radar: 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Operator Collective 🔆 ◾Mallun Yen- Founder & MP ◾Dana Marohn & Haley Brannan - Partner ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: B2B / Enterprise (operator-LP model) ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: SF, California 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Amplifyher Ventures ◾Tricia Black - Founder & GP ◾Meghan Cross - Partner ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Commerce, Care, Connectivity ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: NY 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: FreshTracks Capital ◾Lee Bouyea & George Whalen III- GP & Managing Director ◾Cairn Cross - Co-founder & Managing Director ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Tech, Consumer Products, Clean Energy, Advanced Manufacturing, Health/Wellness ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Shelburne, Vermont 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: 1843 Capital ◾Tracy Chadwell - Founding Partner ◾Gwen Weiss - Partner & CFO ◾Sharon Rodriguez - VP ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: AgeTech/Longevity (Health), plus selective tech/fin sectors ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Greenwich, Connecticut 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: CapitalT ◾Janneke Niessen & Eva De Mol Ph.D - Founding Partner ◾Corinne Vigreux - Cornerstone Investor ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Climate Tech, Future of Work ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Amsterdam 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Precursor Ventures ◾Charles Hudson - MP ◾Ashtan Jordan & Marina Girgis- Principal ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:  Life Sciences, Healthcare ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: SF, California 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Epic Angels ◾Maaike Doyer - Founder ◾Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven - Partner ◾Andrea Davidson - Investment Comittee ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:  All Sectors ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Singapore 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Capita3 ◾Pamela York & Sara Russick - Co-founder & MP ◾Kathy Tune - MP ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Healthtech, Deeptech, B2C, B2B ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: MPLS 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: Conscious Venture Partners ◾Jeff Cherry - CEO Managing GP ◾Joseph W. & John Key - GP ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Healthtech, Sustainability, Impact Investing ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: Maryland(Baltimore) 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗲: G9 Ventures ◾Amy Griffin - Founder & MP ◾Anna Doherty - Partner ◾Elena Rodriguez-Villa - Chief of Staff ◾𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀: Healthtech ◾𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀: NY The future doesn’t just need more female founders, it needs investors who bet on them early. Hosting an invite-only B2B AI & Fintech Pitch Session this month. Upload your deal or join the conversation at joindfx.com. Use code ELLA for one month free. If you’re a woman founder, don’t miss our Female Founder Circle (check comments). #PrivateCapital #VC #PE #Founders #Community #Startups

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Great piece by Alex Konrad on what this week’s OpenAI and Anthropic healthcare announcements really signal for founders and the ecosystem. Thanks for including my perspective. As I shared with Alex: healthcare has always been a massive opportunity, but what feels different now is ecosystem readiness. Patients and providers are finally prepared to adopt AI in ways that fit real workflows, with serious enterprise partnerships acknowledging that healthcare change doesn’t happen in isolation. These launches feel less like an overnight disruption and more like a formal declaration of intent—raising the bar for startups while underscoring how critical trust, privacy, and deep domain relationships remain. AI will increasingly be a primary interface for analysis and decision-making in health, even if it doesn’t ultimately create a single “master” access point for patients. Worth a read: https://lnkd.in/ebYp_U7D

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Big win for the Inito team on closing a $29M Series B led by Bertelsmann India Investments - a major milestone for a company redefining at-home health diagnostics and using AI-designed antibodies to unlock entirely new kinds of tests. We backed Inito early as one of our first investments out of Fund I, and have watched the company grow from a bold idea into a platform built around making quantitative fertility hormone testing possible at home, globally. By measuring estrogen, LH, PdG, and FSH on a single test strip - and applying AI to interpret hormone patterns - Inito delivers a level of clarity and confirmation that traditional ovulation tests simply don’t provide. Since launching over five years ago, Inito has analyzed more than 30 million hormone data points and supported tens of thousands of users - proof that care can be more precise, more personal, and more empowering when it starts at home. Excited to see the team build on this momentum as they expand beyond fertility into a broader at-home diagnostics platform and continue pushing healthcare toward a more proactive, data-driven future. Great work Aayush Rai and Varun AV!

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> Early-stage VC success boils down to three pillars: traction, market, and team. The key is ensuring your traction matches your stage—shifting from problem validation at Pre-Seed, to product "stickiness" at Seed, and finally to repeatable revenue by Series A. Ultimately, investors aren't just looking for a pitch; they are looking for founders who combine deep market insight with relentless execution and data-backed storytelling. When you nail that narrative, your company’s growth doesn't just look likely—it feels inevitable.

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