WPSS.bio is a venture capital firm that invests in revolutionary diagnostics and treatments for central nervous system health.

WPSS.bio

Apeiron Investment Group is the family office and private investment firm of entrepreneur and investor Christian Angermayer. With more than USD 2.5 billion under management and over 50 people across five international locations, Apeiron focuses on Life Sciences, FinTech & Crypto, FutureTech, and Experiences, Hospitality & Happiness. Apeiron has a global approach and deploys its capital across the entire company lifecycle, from founding companies in-house, seed/start-up investments, to large-scale investments in listed companies.

Apeiron Investment Group

Founded in 2006, Windham is a New York City based venture capital firm focused on healthcare, with a particular emphasis on medical technology (devices and diagnostics) and digital health (the intersection of biology, genomics, and information technology).   Windham seeks to invest in and partner with companies that are commercializing game-changing technologies to serve unmet needs in order to improve the lives of large numbers of patients and yield robust returns for its investors.   For more information visit: www.windhamvp.com

Windham Venture Partners

Stanford University is a teaching and research university that focuses on graduate programs in law, medicine, education, and business. Few colleges can match the breadth, excellence, and prestige of Stanford’s academics, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels.   The university is organized into seven schools: Business, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law, and Medicine Student life at Stanford is quite active, due in part to the 11,000+ students living on campus. Art is a strong presence at Stanford, fostered by Stanford Lively Arts, the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, and numerous student clubs and organizations. Stanford also features extensive athletic programs, including more than 35 varsity sports and about 20 clubs sports. In order to maintain its high standards, Stanford University has extremely selective admissions. The university admits undergraduates based on a combination of academic achievement, intellectual curiosity, and personal experience. Graduate admissions criteria and application procedures vary based on the program of study. Undergraduates at Stanford have access to a variety of financial aid opportunities, including institutional scholarships, grants from the government, and student employment. Graduate students can receive financial aid through fellowships and grants, but funding is typically not available for master’s students.

Stanford University

They aim to support and nourish passionate entrepreneurs and inspiring brands that will make the daily lives of people healthier, happier, and more enlightened. They’re guided by their own experiences as entrepreneurs, and  they view all of their investments as partnerships—working with the founders to reach their unique goals. As individual investors, they are open to different paths to growth and exit strategies, and this flexibility is central to the promise they make their brands: they’re here to help you win big.

Able Partners

Presight Capital is a venture capital firm investing in the most ambitious founders across sectors, stages, and geographies.  Presight takes a global approach to early-stage investment opportunities in software, frontier technologies & biotech, backed by Apeiron, the family office of Christian Angermayer, and a group of world-class investors: Moore Capital, Point72, Mike Novogratz (former CIO of Fortress Investment Group), Martin Chavez (former CFO of Goldman Sachs), Alan Howard (Brevan Howard), Brent Hoberman (Founders Forum), and many successful entrepreneurs and investors who contribute their respective network and experience.

Presight Capital

What If Ventures invests in stigmatized verticals within the healthcare market. For too long, stigma has artificially suppressed demand for care in indications such as mental health, fertility, and many others.  Societal changes are creating markets where stigma once stood in the way of people getting the care they need. The firm was founded in 2019 by Stephen Hays, after his own personal struggles with mental health and addiction fueled his desire to see more funding for solutions in that space.  Since then, the firm has broadened its aperture and has deployed nearly $80mm into more than 60 disruptive healthcare startups.

What If Ventures

The firm has a strong focus on the biotech sector in the United States, Europe and Israel, but also selectively invests in fintech and blockchain opportunities.

Korify Capital

Psymed Ventures is an investment syndicate that invests in early-stage psychedelics companies. The firm was founded in 2020 by Matias Serebrinsky and Dina Burkitbayeva and is headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States.

PsyMed Ventures

Our venture fund accelerates the solutions and technologies required by high-risk public servants

Risk and Return

Founded by Nicole Junkermann, an entrepreneur and investor who has previously raised her own significant private equity fund. NJF Capital brings a deep understanding of business strategy, entrepreneurial know-how and a wide network across business and government. They use that experience in disciplines including brand building, recruitment, admin and legal and regulatory environments, to help their portfolio companies on their growth journey.

NJF Capital

Bioverge is a venture capital firm specializing in emerging healthcare startups. The firm operates an investment platform that aims to democratize access to startups solving healthcare’s biggest challenges and accelerating their progress.

Bioverge

Alkeon Capital Management is a service that assists investors with their financial endeavors. Founded in 2001,  Alkeon Capital Management focuses on investing in people and innovation.

Alkeon Capital

Lightswitch Capital is a venture capital firm.

Lightswitch Capital

Valor Equity Partners is an operational growth investment firm that focuses on growth companies across various stages of development. For decades, it has served its companies with the expertise to solve the challenges of growth and scale. Valor Equity partners with companies and entrepreneurs who are committed to the highest standards of excellence and the courage to transform their industries.

Valor Equity Partners

Gaingels is a venture investment syndicate in service of the LGBT+ community and its allies, investing in companies with LGBT+ founders and C-suite leaders at all stages of growth, as well as in more established companies resolved on building more inclusive teams, with a global portfolio of 130+ companies and $70M in deployed investment capital to date.  The Gaingels network also actively supports its portfolio in identifying and recruiting diverse talent to their C-suite and board leadership teams and fosters a vibrant global community of industry leaders, investors, operators, and entrepreneurs who share a common goal for positive social change through business and successful investments.

Gaingels

Novartis Pharma is the Japanese subsidiary of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, a world-leading healthcare company based in Basel, Switzerland

Novartis Pharma

Sobrato Capital is an investment company that invests in private and public sector funds and high growth enterprises.

Sobrato Capital

Vine Ventures is an early stage, software-focused venture capital fund that invests in the U.S., Latin America, and Israel.

Vine Ventures

Single family office of Peter and Robin Lauber investing in residential Real Estate and Venture Capital opportunities

Infinitas Capital

Alpha Wave Ventures is an investment firm.

Alpha Wave Ventures

The Catalytic Impact Foundation accelerates breakthroughs — championing extraordinary innovations, catalytic ideas, and, most importantly, visionary leaders. The Foundation aims to solve complex problems and accelerate innovations, alleviate human suffering, address inequities, and improve the quality of human life through disruptive and scalable projects in the life sciences, education, inclusive entrepreneurship and global sustainability. The Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization incorporated in New York State.

THE CATALYTIC IMPACT FOUNDATION (CIF)

InVivium Capital is a venture capital firm that focusses on investments in healthcare and life sciences.

InVivium Capital

Franklin Resources is a global investment management organization known as Franklin Templeton Investments. They have an extensive global presence, including offices in 35 countries and clients in more than 150. Their common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol BEN and is included in the Standard & Poor’s 500:registered: Index. Franklin Resources Inc. NYSE: BEN is an investment firm originally founded in New York in 1947 as Franklin Distributors, Inc. It is listed on the NYSE under the ticker BEN as in Benjamin Franklin, whom founder Rupert Johnson, Sr. admired. In 1973 the headquarters moved from New York to San Mateo, California. The firm specializes in conservatively managed mutual funds. It offers products under the Franklin, Templeton, Mutual Series and Fiduciary brand names. Like other large investment companies, the firm offers a wide variety of funds but is traditionally best known for bond funds under the Franklin brand, international funds under the Templeton brand, and value funds under the Mutual Series brand.

Franklin Templeton

Eli Lilly engages in the discovery, development, manufacture, and sale of products in the pharmaceutical products business segment. The company manufactures and distributes products through owned or leased facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico, and 25 other countries. Its products are sold in approximately 135 countries. It also conducts research to find products to treat diseases in animals and to increase the efficiency of animal food production.

Eli Lilly

Point72 Ventures is a global venture capital firm that invests primarily in Fintech, AI/ML, and Enterprise technologies. As an independent arm of Point72, the global asset management firm led by Steven Cohen, Point72 Ventures offers well-informed insights into the global economy. Point72 Ventures has offices in New York City, Palo Alto, San Francisco, and Stamford, Connecticut.

Point72 Ventures

Alexandria Venture Investments is a venture capital firm that develops work in real estate technology, and healthcare sectors. The company's strategic venture capital platform is Alexandria Venture Investments. Since its inception in 1996, the company has invested in disruptive life science, agrifood tech, and technology companies that are developing transformative new modalities and platforms to meaningfully improve human health.

Alexandria Venture Investments

Alto Neuroscience

Alto Neuroscience is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that integrates the biology of the patient into drug development to improve the lives of people with mental health conditions. Through its AI-enabled biomarker platform, Alto Neuroscience combines rich sources of information on patients’ brain activity and behavior to rapidly develop highly-effective medicines for targeted populations. Alto Neuroscience aims to replace today's trial-and-error clinical approach by aligning the right Alto drug with the right patient, redefining psychiatry at a time when the world needs it most.

<div>Alto Neuroscience focuses on precision psychiatry and develops targeted medicines for mental health conditions including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It leverages its AI-powered biomarker platform &ldquo;Precision Psychiatry Platform,&rdquo; which identifies biomarkers based on a patient&rsquo;s brain activity, responses to drugs, electroencephalogram (EEG) activity, and wearable data to identify the most suitable drug for a patient. This approach allows the company to develop drugs that target specific biological pathways rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.</div>

Artificial intelligence is identifying and testing new therapies faster than ever.

AI Drug Discovery

Alto Neuroscience falls 47% after announcing ALTO-100 did not meet endpoint

<div>
 
 Alto Neuroscience focuses on precision psychiatry and develops targeted medicines for mental health conditions including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It leverages its AI-powered biomarker platform &ldquo;Precision Psychiatry Platform,&rdquo; which identifies biomarkers based on a patient&rsquo;s brain activity, responses to drugs, electroencephalogram (EEG) activity, and wearable data to identify the most suitable drug for a patient. This approach allows the company to develop drugs that target specific biological pathways rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.
 
 
 As of March 2024, Alto had seven drug candidates in its pipeline, all of which were in the clinical stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2021, Alto Neuroscience partnered with
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211216005237/en/Cerebral-and-Alto-Neuroscience-Enter-into-Strategic-Collaboration-to-Launch-First-Ever-Decentralized-Study-in-Precision-Psychiatry">
 Cerebral 
 </a>
 to conduct a decentralized clinical study involving Cerebral members to evaluate Alto's biomarker platform and targeted drug candidates.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26277">
 February 2024
 </a>
 , Alto Neuroscience was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol &quot;ANRO&quot; and raised ~USD 128.6 million in its IPO, comprising 8 million shares at USD 16.00 per share. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 HiberCell is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapies focused on oncology. It entered the AI drug discovery space when it acquired AI genomics analysis company Genuity Science (and its subsidiaries in Iceland and Ireland) in August 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Genuity Science&rsquo;s solutions include end-to-end therapeutic discovery and development services such as building custom disease datasets, discovering and prioritizing targets, identifying biomarkers, and optimizing clinical trials. Genuity Science leverages its AI-powered platform to manage, process, and analyze genomic data. HiberCell intends to use Genuity Science&rsquo;s AI/ML capabilities to advance its oncology pipeline of five programs, of which one has reached the Phase 2 clinical trial stage.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company&rsquo;s pipeline included three drug candidates, namely: 1) HC-7366, targeting the general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) kinase as part of the integrated stress response (ISR) signaling pathway; 2) HC-5404, aimed at inhibiting the PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK) involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling pathway; and 3) odetiglucan, a therapy targeting tumor-immune interactions within the tumor microenvironment​.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2023, HiberCell and Merck &amp; Co partnered to conduct a Phase Ib trial to evaluate the combination therapy of belzutifan and HC-7366 for treating clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Further, in January 2021, the company partnered with Biodesix to develop an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a companion diagnostic test.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://hibercell.com/news/hibercell-closes-67-4-million-series-b-financing-and-secures-30-million-debt-facility-from-hercules-capital/">
 May 2021
 </a>
 , HiberCell completed a Series B financing round, raising USD 67.4 million, and secured an additional USD 30 million in debt financing from Hercules Capital. The funds were expected to be used for clinical advancement of its novel therapeutic candidates. 
 
</div>

HiberCell

<div>
 
 Arbor Biotechnologies specializes in gene editing to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of indications, starting with liver-related diseases. It operates an AI-powered biodiscovery platform to discover novel CRISPR enzymes, which are sequences of repeating genetic code. To do this, its platform deploys computational search techniques, genome sequencing, gene synthesis, and high-throughput screening. This can eventually be turned into drugs or even applied to agriculture and other industrial uses. In 2018, the company announced the discovery of Cas13d, a new type of gene editing enzyme that helps to alter RNA to treat genetic diseases.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of February 2024, the company had five internal drug discovery programs, of which one was in the IND-enabling stage. It also has multiple collaborative programs under development focused on oncology and various other therapeutic areas.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has a long-standing partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals since
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005194/en/Vertex-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Establish-Collaboration-to-Discover-Novel-Proteins-to-Advance-Discovery-of-Gene-Editing-Therapies">
 January 2019
 </a>
 , which focused on developing gene-editing treatments for cystic fibrosis and four other diseases. The alliance was further extended in 
 <a href="https://www.biospace.com/article/vertex-and-arbor-strike-a-1-2-billion-deal-for-gene-editing-programs/">
 August 2021
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15741">
 January 2023
 </a>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 Other partnerships included a collaboration with 
 <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbor-biotechnologies-announces-collaboration-with-ginkgo-bioworks-to-advance-the-discovery-and-development-of-precision-gene-editors-302011991.html">
 Ginkgo Bioworks
 </a>
 (December 2023) to leverage Ginkgo's R&amp;D services to further optimize Arbor's novel precision editors, a non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/08/2380680/0/en/EdiGene-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Announce-Worldwide-Non-exclusive-License-Agreement-to-Advance-Ex-Vivo-Engineered-Cell-Therapy-Programs.html">
 EdiGene
 </a>
 (February 2022) to leverage Arbor&rsquo;s platform for ex vivo oncology therapies, a strategic research and non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://investors.tcr2.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tcr2-therapeutics-and-arbor-biotechnologies-establish">
 TCR2 Therapeutics
 </a>
 (January 2022) to develop allogeneic TRuC T-cell therapies using Arbor&rsquo;s CRISPR technology, and a license agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.lonza.com/news/2020-12-23-14-00">
 Lonza
 </a>
 (December 2020) to use Arbor&rsquo;s gene-editing technology for Lonza&rsquo;s bioproduction products and services.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In its latest Series B funding round in November 2021, which was led by Ally Bridge Group, TCG Crossover, and Temasek, Arbor Biotechnologies raised USD 215 million. The proceeds of the round were earmarked to fuel the company&rsquo;s clinical development pipeline.
 
</div>

Arbor Biotechnologies

Based in the UK, Arctoris provides an automated drug discovery platform, offering fully validated research and development (R&amp;D) processes under an Experiments-as-a-Service model. The company works with biotechnology companies, AI drug discovery companies, pharma and academic institutions enabling these institutions to run experiments in Arctoris’s platform and provides on-demand access to a broad scale of datasets for AI drug discovery companies to train their algorithms.

Arctoris

<div>
 
 Frontier Medicines leverages AI/ML technologies to develop treatments for cancer-causing proteins that are dismissed by traditional pharma companies as undruggable.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company has a proprietary chemoproteomic platform which entails an approach based on the interaction of small-molecule compounds and proteins to screen a large number of targets and combine them with a protein database that contains more than 150,000 novel binding pockets (hotspots). This enables it to access 90% of the human proteome that were not previously targeted due to lack of hotspots. The platform&rsquo;s AI/ML engine incorporates a library of diverse compounds, a hotspot map that serves as the starting point for understanding the druggability of a potential therapeutic target, and lead design and generation.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company focuses on oncology and immunology target and, as of February 2024, it had five wholly-owned therapeutic programs and three AbbVie-partnered programs in its pipeline. All programs were in their discovery stage, except the company&rsquo;s lead candidate, FMC-376 (activated and inactivated forms), focused on treating different cancer types, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is in the IND-enabling stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company entered a USD 100 million partnership with 
 <a href="https://news.abbvie.com/2020-12-02-AbbVie-and-Frontier-Medicines-Establish-Global-Partnership-to-Discover-and-Develop-Novel-Therapies-and-E3-Degraders-Against-Difficult-to-Drug-Targets">
 AbbVie
 </a>
 In December 2020 to develop small-molecule therapeutics against hard-to-drug protein targets including around 600 E3 ligases (the enzymes that drive the ubiquitination and degradation of proteins.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2021, the company raised USD 88.5 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4347">
 Series B
 </a>
 funding round co-led by Woodline Partners LP and RA Capital Management, with equal participation from Deerfield Management Company. The proceeds were earmarked for advancing the company&rsquo;s drug pipeline and expanding operations in Boston, where its new facility was to complement the company&rsquo;s headquarters in California. 
 
</div>

Frontier Medicines

<div>
 
 Verge Genomics is a biotechnology company engaged in developing therapeutics for neurological diseases using human genomics and AI to accelerate drug discovery. The main target areas are Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson&rsquo;s Disease (PD), and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).&nbsp;
 
 
 It has built a proprietary all-human platform (unlike standard clinical trials that rely on animal data), called CONVERGE, that uses data sets from brain tissue samples of deceased patients with ALS and PD. While most drugs target only one gene at a time, the company claims its technology can identify hundreds of genes that cause disease and develop drugs that target all the genes at the same time. The company uses AI technology to optimize the drug discovery process as a whole.
 
 
 As of March 2024, Verge had one drug candidate in the clinical stage (Phase I) and 10 drug candidates in the discovery stage.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has partnerships with various tissue banks (such as Harvard University and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine) and several educational institutes and foundations (such as Target ALS, Answer ALS) that enabled its drug discovery platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In addition, the company&rsquo;s customers include several pharmaceutical companies, such as 1) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-announces-research-collaboration-with-the-sheffield-institute-for-translational-neuroscience">
 Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
 </a>
 to accelerate the validation of novel drug targets and screening of drug compounds for Parkinson's disease (February 2021), 2) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4146">
 Eli Lilly
 </a>
 to research and develop novel therapies to treat ALS (July 2021), 3) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21707">
 Alexion
 </a>
 to identify novel drug targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases (September 2023), and 4) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-and-the-pritzker-neuropsychiatric-disorders-research-consortium-form-cutting-edge-schizophrenia-research-collaboration">
 Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium
 </a>
 to analyze data from schizophrenic patient&rsquo;s brain tissue with Verge&rsquo;s technology (October 2023).
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In December 2021, Verge raised USD 98 million in an oversubscribed 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7426">
 Series A
 </a>
 funding round led by BlackRock. The funds were used to scale up its pre-clinical and clinical candidate programs in the pipeline and enhance its lead therapeutics through clinical testing. 
 
</div>

Verge Genomics

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies for drug discovery services such as target selection, validation and lead optimization.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to design and run preclinical experiments.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to identify biomarkers (measurable biological signs used to determine disease progression) and predict drug response. 

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies aggregating and analyzing biomedical data with the help of AI to generate insights across the drug development pipeline.

Biotechnology companies that have integrated AI as a core component of their in-house drug development process. They typically have a few in-house drug development programs, and also collaborate with pharma companies to develop certain drugs.

Companies leverage GenAI to support drug discovery through accelerated drug designing

Companies offer AI/ML-based SaaS products to accelerate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics

Offers AI/ML-based solutions to accelerate drug discovery and development

Leveraging personal data for custom-fit diagnosis and treatment

Precision Medicine

<div>

 Alto Neuroscience, a biopharmaceutical company, has been awarded a grant of USD 11.7 million by the Wellcome Trust. This funding is intended to aid the Phase IIb clinical trials of their drug candidate, ALTO-100, which is under investigation as a potential treatment for bipolar depression. The trial is projected to enrol around 200 participants and anticipates revealing primary data by 2026.
 The company specializes in precision psychiatry, using neurobiology to create individualized treatments for various mental health conditions. Through the Precision Psychiatry Platform, Alto Neuroscience utilizes brain biomarkers, such as EEG activity, neurocognitive evaluations, and information collected from wearables, to determine the likely success rate of specific drug candidates among different patients. Its drug development pipeline includes a range of clinical-stage assets, including ALTO-100 and ALTO-300 for major depressive disorder, ALTO-101 targeted at cognitive impairments related to schizophrenia, and ALTO-203 for treating major depressive disorder with anhedonia.

</div>

Alto Neuroscience

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