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

Plug and Play is a seed and early-stage investor focused on great teams leading emerging growth companies.  Plug and Play runs 12 industry-specific accelerator programs twice a year, that acts as a platform for major corporations and high quality startups to connect and collaborate.  Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Plug and Play participates in Seed, Angel and Series A funding where they often co-invest with their strategic partners. Through years of experience and as part of their network, Plug and Play has put together a world-class network of serial entrepreneurs, strategic investors, and industry leaders who actively assist the firm with its successful and growing investment portfolio.  SEED ROUND. Plug and Play participates in seed round investing through a program called Startup Camp. Startup Camp is a 10-week program based in Silicon Valley for top-notch entrepreneurs to work intensively on building out their business model. Select startups will refine their business models and prototypes with help from a combination of structured workshops, speaker series and mentorship sessions, as well as active coaching from their investment team. At the culmination of Startup Camp, founders will have crystalized their business plans and pitched their company to the venture capital community at EXPO Demo Day.''  ANGEL ROUND Plug and Play makes angel round investments throughout the year, sourced from their monthly Plug and Play Angels (PAPA) sessions. They are partnered with local angel investors in Silicon Valley who participate in PAPA to find the most promising startups and best new technologies.  SERIES A. Series A typical Series A round is in the range of $2 million to $10 million, and is intended to provide operating capital for the company for six months to two years. This round capitalizes the company as it develops its products, performs initial marketing and branding, acquires talent, and conducts other early-stage business operations. It is in this stage that Plug and Play will co-invest with over 180 venture capital partners.  Plug and Play has helped grow market leaders such as PayPal, Danger, Google, DropBox, LendingClub, Zoosk, SoundHound, CreditSesame, Skytree, and has over 400 more early-stage startups in its portfolio.

Plug and Play

In 2015, two independant investment teams were created in Paris inside Otium Capital, Pierre-Edouard Stérin's family office: * Otium Venture, focused on Seed investments in Tech companies (€40m invested in 14 companies among which Payfit, Doctrine, Owkin...) * Otium Brands, focused on Seed & Series A investments in Consumer Goods companies  In 2019, the two teams spun off to become independant investment firms: * Otium Venture became frst * Otium Brands became Eutopia

Otium Capital

Cathay Innovation is a global venture capital firm, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, investing in startups at the center of digital revolution across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Its global platform unifies technology investment across continents, investors, entrepreneurs and leading corporations to accelerate startup growth with access to new markets, invaluable industry knowledge and introductions to potential partners from the start. As a multistage fund with over $1.5 billion assets under management and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs and startups positively impacting the world through technology.  To learn more, please visit www.cathayinnovation.com or follow us on Twitter @Cathayinnov.

Cathay Innovation

GV supports innovative founders moving the world forward. We invest across the life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology sectors. With Alphabet as a sole limited partner, GV operates on long time horizons and deals in decades, not rounds. Our operating partners support startups at the earliest stages of company-building across design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering. We also help startups interface with Google, providing unique access to the world's best technology and talent. Launched as Google Ventures in 2009, GV has over $8 billion in assets under management and 400 active portfolio companies across North America and Europe. Notable investment outcomes include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, Duo Security, Flatiron Health, Verve Therapeutics, and One Medical. GV is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

Eight Roads Ventures is a global venture capital firm managing $11bn of assets across offices in the UK, China, India, Japan, and the US. Together with our associated funds, including our US sister fund F-Prime Capital, our 50-year history of investing includes partnerships with over 500 companies such as Alibaba, AppsFlyer, Chewy, Fareye, Fever, Flywire, Fireblocks, Funnel.io, Gloat, Hibob, Icertis, Neo4j, Otrium, Owkin, Paidy, Spendesk, Tibber, Toast, Wallapop and Xoom.

Eight Roads Ventures

F-Prime's roots are in one of America’s great entrepreneurial success stories. Fidelity Investments was founded in 1946 and grew from a single mutual fund into one of the largest asset management firms in the world, with over $2 trillion in assets under management. For the last forty years, this venture capital group has had the privilege of backing other great entrepreneurs as they built ground-breaking companies in technology and life sciences, including Atari, MCI, ROLM Corp., Alibaba, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx.  Today, F-Prime's funds are larger and more global, but its teams are still small and local. F-Prime stays true to its entrepreneurial roots. In the US and Europe, F-Prime Capital Partners is investing in healthcare (formerly Fidelity Biosciences) and in technology (formerly part of Devonshire Investors). In other geographies, its sister fund is called Eight Roads (formerly Fidelity Growth Partners), with investment teams in London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mumbai.   Together F-Prime brings a world of insight, domain expertise and relationships to support entrepreneurs. Without the pressure of fundraising from outside investors, F-Prime Capital Partners focuses all of its time finding and helping great entrepreneurs build important companies.

F-Prime Capital

Bpifrance provides financial solutions for companies that are booting up the listing on the stock exchange and credit equity. It includes OSEO, CDC Entreprises, FSI, and FSI Regions to offer in your area of financial solutions at every stage of the life of your business. Bpifrance was founded in 2012 and is based in Maisons-alfort, Ile-de-France, France.

Bpifrance

Mutuelle d'Assurance du Corps de Santé Français (MACSF) is the provider of insurance to health professionals. MACSF protects and accompanies 950,000 members of all medical and paramedical specialties, offering professional and personal solutions in insurance, savings, financing, and pensions. Its products and services meet the real needs of its members by accompanying them in the evolution of their profession and their projects. MACSF was founded in 1935.

MACSF

Mubadala Capital’s Ventures business builds on Mubadala’s 10-year track record of being an active investor in advanced technology. The Ventures platform includes a direct investment business, a fund of funds business and the management and oversight of Mubadala’s partnership with SoftBank, including its U.S. $15 billion LP commitment to the SoftBank Vision Fund.  The Ventures team is based in Abu Dhabi, San Francisco, and London with strong connectivity to European and Chinese venture capital markets through other Mubadala Capital managed vehicles.

Mubadala Capital Ventures

Sanofi offers research, development, manufacturing, and marketing of innovative therapeutic solutions. It covers areas such as diabetes solutions, human vaccines, innovative drugs, consumer healthcare, emerging markets, animal health, and the new G enzyme.

Sanofi

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, through its subsidiaries, engages in the discovery, development, licensing, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sale of pharmaceuticals and nutritional products.  Bristol Myers Squibb focuses on areas such as oncology, cardiovascular, immunoscience, and fibrosis to develop therapies that address significant unmet medical needs. The company's research and development efforts are centered around discovering new drugs and advancing existing ones to improve patient outcomes. BMS has a diverse portfolio of medicines, including several blockbuster drugs used in the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The company is committed to advancing the science of medicine to help people fight serious diseases and improve their quality of life.

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Owkin

Foundation Models

<div>
 
 France-based Bioptimus specializes in drug discovery, utilizing a large-language model (LLM) for the biotechnology sector. Bioptimus aims to adopt AI in understanding and utilizing multi-scale biological data, simplifying complex information to aid in discoveries.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In February 2024, 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/26795">
 Bioptimus raised USD 35 million 
 </a>
 in seed funding led by Sofinnova Partners to integrate AI with biological sciences, aiming for scientific discoveries and personalized medical treatments. Moreover, the company planned to create models that predict and adapt to individual biological scenarios.
 
 
 
</div>

Bioptimus is a developer of a universal AI foundation model that connects biology at all sizes, from molecules to cells, tissues, and entire organisms. The company's technology turns multiscale data into actionable representations, allowing clients to spark breakthrough discoveries and expedite biomedical innovation.

Tribun Health drives the digital transformation of cancer detection by creating innovative solutions. These systems enable diagnostic laboratories and pharmaceutical/biotech businesses to manage, analyze, and share cellular pictures.

Owkin is a French-American startup that uses artificial intelligence to find the right treatment for every patient. Our focus is to use AI to discover and develop better treatments for unmet medical needs, starting with the fight against cancer. They use AI to identify new drug candidates, de-risk and accelerate clinical trials and build diagnostic tools that improve patient outcomes.  Using federated learning, a pioneering collaborative AI framework, Owkin enables medical and biopharma partners to unlock valuable insights from siloed datasets, while protecting patient privacy and securing proprietary data.  Owkin was co-founded by Thomas Clozel MD, a clinical research doctor and former assistant professor in clinical onco-hematology, and Gilles Wainrib, a pioneer in the field of machine learning in biology, in 2016. Owkin has raised over $255 million and became a ‘unicorn’ – a startup valued at more than $1 billion – in November 2021 through a $180 million investment from French biopharma company Sanofi.

<div>Owkin is a biotechnology company focused on leveraging AI to advance personalized medicine. The company's core activities encompass multimodal patient data analysis, and AI-enhanced drug discovery, development, and diagnostics. Owkin's research platform facilitates collaborative research across data scientists, clinicians, academic researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, while ensuring data privacy by allowing patient data to remain within hospital infrastructure. It has global reach with locations in cities like Boston, New York, London, Paris, Nantes, and Geneva.</div>

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

AI Drug Discovery

<div>Headquartered in New York, Owkin supports clinical trials with patient recruitment through a range of solutions. Its primary solution is Owkin Connect, a software solution that uses federated learning to allow users to apply AI models and algorithms to larger data pools across multiple parties. In terms of industry standards, the platform is compliant with HIPAA and GDPR and is ISO 27001 certified.</div>

Incorporating technology to improve efficiency and success rate of clinical trials

Clinical Trial Technology

<div>
 
 Owkin is a biotechnology company focused on leveraging AI to advance personalized medicine. The company's core activities encompass multimodal patient data analysis, and AI-enhanced drug discovery, development, and diagnostics. Owkin's research platform facilitates collaborative research across data scientists, clinicians, academic researchers, and pharmaceutical companies, while ensuring data privacy by allowing patient data to remain within hospital infrastructure. It has global reach with locations in cities like Boston, New York, London, Paris, Nantes, and Geneva.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Owkin has collaborated with major biopharmaceutical firms like Sanofi (November 2021), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) (June 2022), and Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme (MSD) (December 2023), focusing on AI drug discovery, development, and diagnostics.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/6807">
 November 2021
 </a>
 , Owkin raised USD 180 million in Series B funding from Sanofi. The company was valued at more than USD 1 billion at the time of the funding. The funds were used to accelerate the company&rsquo;s histology and genomic cancer database.&nbsp;
 
 
 Earlier in June 2022, the company raised USD 80 million as part of a research collaboration with BMS. The proceeds were used to develop its AI-powered platform for clinical trial design and expand the disease indications that can be explored using the platform.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 e-Therapeutics is a UK-based company specializing in drug discovery and development. It leverages computational biology to expedite the drug discovery process, particularly in RNA interference (RNAi) medicines. The company's approach integrates network analysis, machine learning, AI, data mining, and optimization into its proprietary databases and computational tools to identify and develop therapies.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company utilizes two platforms: 1) The HepNet Computational Platform, which is an in-silico (performed via computer simulation) laboratory that allows users to conduct hypotheses, phenotypic screening, and the identification and prioritization of novel therapeutic targets, and 2) the GalOmic RNAi Platform that enables highly specific silencing of gene expression and specializes in the development of RNAi therapies.
 
 
 Further, it has four drug candidates in the pipeline, namely 1) ETX-312 to treat metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), 2) ETX-407 to treat dry age-related macular degeneration (dAMD), 3) ETX-148 to treat pan-haemophilia, and 4) ETX-291 to treat a broad spectrum of cardiometabolic diseases.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s customers include several pharmaceutical companies to develop therapies using its proprietary platforms. These include partnerships with 
 <a href="https://www.etherapeutics.co.uk/news-and-media/press-releases/e-therapeutics-signs-research-collaboration-agreement-novo-nordisk/">
 Novo Nordisk
 </a>
 (December 2018), 
 <a href="https://www.etherapeutics.co.uk/news-and-media/press-releases/collaboration-galapagos-discover-new-therapeutic-strategies-treatment-idiopathic-pulmonary-fibrosis-and-other-fibrotic-condition/">
 Galapagos
 </a>
 (June 2020), and 
 <a href="https://www.etherapeutics.co.uk/news-and-media/press-releases/immuno-oncology-research-collaboration-iteos-therapeutics/">
 iTeos Therapeutics 
 </a>
 (April 2022). It is also working with another undisclosed top-five pharma company in a specific area of neurodegeneration.&nbsp;
 
 
 Further in May 2018, the company partnered with C4X Discovery to identify new pathophysiological mechanisms in Parkinson&rsquo;s disease.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 2007, the company was listed on the Alternative Investment Market, the London Stock Exchange&rsquo;s public market for small and medium-sized growth companies, under the ticker symbol &ldquo;ETX&rdquo;. Further in 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/13462">
 September 2022
 </a>
 , the company raised GBP 13.5 million (USD 15.1 million) from funds managed by institutional investor M&amp;G Investment Management Limited via the subscription of new ordinary shares. The funds were expected to be used for the company's growth initiatives.
 
</div>

eTherapeutics

<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

<div>
 
 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&rsquo;s platform and provides on-demand access to a broad scale of datasets for AI drug discovery companies to train their algorithms.
 
</div>

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

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

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

<div>
 
 Headquartered in New York, Owkin supports clinical trials with patient recruitment through a range of solutions. Its primary solution is Owkin Connect, a software solution that uses federated learning to allow users to apply AI models and algorithms to larger data pools across multiple parties. In terms of industry standards, the platform is compliant with HIPAA and GDPR and is ISO 27001 certified.
 
 
 The company also offers a diagnostic solution that incorporates AI to speed up the diagnosis process and match them with suitable clinical trials.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Owkin works with a consortium of partners, which includes Innovative Medicines Initiative, Melloddy, Horizon 2020, BigPicture, BPI France, and Health Chain as of May 2022. These partners all share data with Owkin Connect to improve the volume of data for the AI models to be trained on.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Owkin raised USD 180 million in Series B funding from Sanofi in November 2021 at a valuation above USD 1 billion. The two companies also signed a partnership agreement worth USD 90 million to use Owkin&rsquo;s technology in drug development and discovery projects.
 
 
 The company also raised USD 80 million in June 2022, as part of a research collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb. The proceeds are to be used to develop it's AI-powered platform for clinical trial design and expand the disease indications that can be explored using the platform.
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Headquartered in Amsterdam, Castor is a cloud-based e-clinical data platform that can be used for a range of tasks and processes during a clinical trial. It offers four solutions: 1) electronic data capture (EDC) to capture and process data from multiple sources including researchers, 2) electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO) to collect and manage patient-reported data on a centralized platform, 3) e-consent - to enable patients to be recruited, screened, and enrolled remotely, and 4) a decentralized clinical trials (DCT) platform to assist operators with managing DCT technologies and devices through a central platform. The company&rsquo;s solutions are targeted at industries like biotech and pharma, diagnostics, and clinical research organizations.&nbsp;
 
 
 Castor aimed to collect enough clinical trial research data to enable the reuse of data for AI-driven clinical trials, which would lower the costs of operating clinical trials and reduce the time taken to bring new drugs to market.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2022, the company supported over 8,500 studies and clinical trials across more than 90 countries since launching in 2007. In terms of therapeutic areas, Castor has supported a range of different areas including oncology, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. The company has been engaged by over 300 organizations, including the World Health Organization, Click Therapeutics, and Stryker. Castor&rsquo;s solutions are built in line with industry-standard compliance and data protection standards including HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 27001.
 
 
 It was the first to incorporate machine learning into its system for the identification of Covid-19 patients. The company offered free access to its system for Covid-19 research projects, with over 200 projects using the platform as of June 2022.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company raised USD 45 million in Series B funding in July 2021, led by Eight Roads Ventures and F-Prime Capital. The funds were earmarked for product development, interoperability with partner systems, and market research on decentralized trials. The company had a headcount of 150 at the time of the Series B and was planning to expand to 200 by the end of 2021.
 
</div>

Castor

<div>
 
 Florence Healthcare offers a platform for clinical trial management. It has four key components: 1) SiteLink to start-up and monitor remote clinical sites, 2) eBinders to digitize and store research binders, 3) eConsent to simplify and digitize the consent process, and 4) Electronic Trial Master File to digitize the storage and transfer of files between sites and research sponsors. The platform is compliant with standard industry requirements including HIPAA, 21 C.F.R Part 11, ICF/GCP, and GDPR.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2022, Florence supported over 10,000 research sites across 45 countries, with key customers including Pfizer. The usage of the company&rsquo;s software tripled in 2020, driven by an industry shift toward digitalization as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2022, the company was ranked as the best clinical trial platform out of a group of 190 for ease of setup, ease of use, and customer support.
 
 
 Florence partnered with Greenphire, a company focusing on patient convenience and financial management for clinical trials, in Janauary 2024. Through the partnership, Florence's platform will be integrated with Greenphire's to improve payment systems within clinical trials. Benefits of the partnership included reduced manual work for sites, faster payments, and better visibility of site activity for sponsors and Contract Research Organizations (CROs).
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company raised USD 80 million in Series C funding in May 2021 led by Insight Partners. The proceeds were to be used to scale up its sales and marketing teams and improve the value proposition of the platform by reducing the time required by customers to implement and manage clinical trials.
 
</div>

Florence Healthcare

<div>
 
 Huma is a UK-based clinical trial tech startup that provides a digital platform to manage clinical trials, including decentralized clinical trials. The platform can be used throughout the clinical trial process, including patient recruitment, screening, electronic consent, clinical outcome assessments, patient-reported outcomes, and telemedicine. The platform is built up to industry standards in data privacy and security, including ISO 27001, 21 C.F.R. Part 11, and TxP.
 
 
 In June 2023, the company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/19352">
 received FDA 510(k) Class II FDA clearance
 </a>
 for its configurable disease-agnostic platform, including its cardiovascular risk score algorithm. The company received this FDA clearance in partnership with Health Canada and it allows Huma's platform to be used to monitor patients of all ages with any condition, including pediatrics and pregnancy. The Class II clearance also enables the platform to host algorithms that provide automated AI-driven data analytics for diagnosis, screening, clinical decision-making, predictions on health outcomes, and recommendations on dosage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Some of the key partners working with Huma include AstraZeneca, Johnson &amp; Johnson, Bayer, Stanford University, and the University of Cambridge. As of May 2022, the platform supported more than 3,000 hospitals and clinics with more than 1.8 million active users on the platform. Huma was awarded the 2022 Prix Galien Award, which is widely considered the &ldquo;Nobel Prize&rdquo; for pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
 
 
 The company announced a partnership with Xyla Elective Care in June 2022, to provide support to the UK&rsquo;s National Health Service in delivering and managing virtual wards.
 
 
 In August 2023, the company partnered with Google Cloud to improve healthcare through the use of generative AI. Through the partnership, the company planned to improve its 
 regulated disease management platform by incorporating Google Cloud's GenAI. The company additionally noted that it was exploring the use of Google Cloud's GenAI tools to support healthcare professionals with better insights to optimise care delivery.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Huma raised USD 33 million from AstraZeneca in March 2022 as a strategic investment. Additionally, as part of the agreement, the companies are to launch new products for software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD), including customized software development of SaMD companion apps for customers.
 
</div>

Huma

<div>
 
 Based in California and founded in 2015, Medable is a digital clinical trial management platform with a range of modules for different processes. These modules include a decentralized clinical trial platform to support decentralized trials using remote tools for data gathering, monitoring, televisits, and consent; digital patient screening to screen patients remotely and at scale; e-consent to enable patients to digitally consent for clinical trials; electronic clinical outcome assessments; and patient-reported outcomes to document data in real time and provide easy access for researchers. It also includes remote patient monitoring to make it easy for patients to record and share data with clinical research teams.
 
 
 Medable operates on a SaaS business model, with customers having the option of selecting and deploying only the modules required as part of their uniquely customized solution.
 
 
 As of September 2022, the company expanded to provide services to over 300 clinical trials based in more than 60 countries and in 26 languages. The company&rsquo;s platform is compliant with industry standards, including HIPAA, FDA&rsquo;s 21 CFR Part 11, and GDPR. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2022, Medable works with a range of partners, including Cognizant, Accenture, Oracle, and PwC.&nbsp;
 
 
 In February 2022, the company announced a Medable Partner Network, which brought together a range of partners across different types. This included direct-to-patient, service, data, technology, and site partners. The objective of this partnership network is to speed up the innovation process and deployment of the platform at clinical sites, creating value for Medable&rsquo;s customers.
 
 
 In September 2022, the company announced a four year agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to use Medable&rsquo;s platform for clinical trials across multiple products. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
 
 
 In October 2023, the company partnered with Pluto Health, a healthcare coordination company, to enhance the clinical trial experience for participants and improve data collection during trials. Through the partnership, the companies aimed to connect patients to the right medical resources including access to clinical trials and home delivery of medication. Pluto Health's platform would collect participants&rsquo; health information and create personalized care plans, while Medable would offer features such as patient identification and remote patient monitoring. The partnership also aimed to improve data quality and facilitate long-term follow-up with patients post-trial.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 Medable raised USD 304 million in November 2021 at a USD 2.1 billion valuation co-led by Blackstone Growth and Tiger Global. The proceeds were to be used for the development of decentralized clinical trial technologies including telemedicine and remote monitoring as well as for the expansion of global operations.
 
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Medable

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 Headquartered in Singapore, Obvio Health provides a full service for clients, supporting them throughout the clinical trial process from the design and recruitment stages to outcome measurement and reporting. In addition to its technological platform, the company provides professional services to execute clinical trials using its in-house clinical operations team. The platform caters to 17 therapeutic areas, including cardiology, oncology, respiratory, men's and women's health, dermatology, gi, hepatology, mental health, oral health, and infectious disease (Covid-19). The platform is compliant with industry standards including 21 CFR Part 11, ICH-GDP, GDPR, and ISO 27001.&nbsp;
 
 
 According to the company, its platform was designed from the ground up to cater to digital trials run by virtual clinical teams, which resulted in faster patient recruitment (three months for Obvio compared to 12 months for physical site trials). In January 2022, the company launched an augmented electronic patient-reported outcome (augmented ePRO) module, which incorporates AI and manual scoring by experts/clinicians. The company claims this improves the accuracy and quality of data collected.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of May 2022, Obvio Health&rsquo;s client base include GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bayer, Danone, and General Mills. The company has supported 42 clinical trials from launch to May 2022, spread over 28 countries.
 
 
 In March 2022, Obvio partnered with Renovia to conduct the first fully virtual trial in urogynaecology, based on Renovia&rsquo;s Leva device. The device helped patients with performing kegel exercises more effectively, in addition to monitoring compliance over the trial period.
 
 
 In November 2023, Obvio then partnered with Chemist Warehouse, the largest retail pharmacy chain in Australia, to improve the reach and efficiency of clinical trials. 
 Through the partnership, Chemist Warehouse agreed to promote ObvioHealth-managed trials to its customers in Australia, using both offline and online channels. Additionally, ObvioHealth agreed to utilize Chemist Warehouse's Telehealth services for studies that require clinician assessments. The collaboration aimed to increase the awareness and convenience of clinical trials, addressing two major hurdles in participant recruitment. The long-term goal of the partnership was to expedite the introduction of innovative therapies to the market more efficiently and economically.
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 The company raised USD 31 million of Series B funding in June 2021 led by Dedalus Group and Novotech Health. The investment was primarily strategic, with Obvio benefiting from its Dedalus partnership in terms of European clinical trial compliance, while it became Novotech Health&rsquo;s preferred virtual clinical trial provider.&nbsp;
 
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ObvioHealth

Most CTT platforms are offered on a B2B basis to companies carrying out clinical trials

Startups in this hub use IoT to support report patient monitoring and data gathering

Offers digital platforms that accelerate clinical trials and evaluations

AI/ML algorithms can be used to automate the analysis of patient data

Startups in this hub seek to improve clinical trial diversity by including underrepresented communities

This is the use of software, incorporating AI and Machine Learning technology to improve the matching process of patients with suitable clinical trials.

Owkin

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