Matrix is an early-stage venture capital firm, investing from idea through Series A. As a close-knit team of former founders and company builders, Matrix has partnered with companies from Apple and FedEx to Oculus and Canva.  Other Matrix investments include Fivetran, Suno, Side, Afterpay, CTRL-Labs, Oculus, Zendesk, Hubspot, Apollo GraphQL, Flock Safety, GOAT, Postmates, Acacia Communications, and Sila.

Matrix

Matrix Capital Management (''Matrix'') is an investment management firm overseeing a focused portfolio of carefully selected public and private investments. Established in 1999, Matrix Capital was co-founded by David Goel and is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Matrix has delivered attractive, long-term risk-adjusted returns through a concentrated portfolio of high-conviction investments in U.S. companies focused on semiconductors, software, generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, and the technology convergence in life sciences. Prior to co-founding Matrix, Managing General Partner David Goel was a senior technology investor at Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management.

Matrix Capital Management

Mayo Clinic Ventures is dedicated to quickly bringing answers to the people who need them most: the patients living with diseases and conditions that threaten to limit or even end their lives. Our team works closely with Mayo physicians and scientists to mine inventions, ideas and discoveries that will truly transform health care. Their dedicated efforts bring significant financial support to Mayo's patient care, education and research efforts.

Mayo Clinic Ventures

Launched in 2019, NTTVC is an independent venture capital firm formed in collaboration with NTT. Leveraging a unique partnership-focused strategy and deep industry network, NTTVC unlocks doors to relationships that can help startups reach global scale. With its $500M inaugural fund, the firm invests broadly in technology startups of all stages and sectors, with an emphasis on the future of enterprise, digital health and innovations powered by AI, machine learning and data. NTTVC is headquartered in Silicon Valley.

NTT Venture Capital

nference

Automation in clinical diagnostics to improve speed and accuracy in patient diagnosis and treatment.

Clinical Decision Support Systems

Anumana is an AI-driven health technology company that develops software-as-a-medical-device (SaMD) solutions to detect hidden diseases using electrocardiogram (ECG) AI algorithms. The company's flagship product, ECG-AI LEF, received FDA 510(k) clearance in October 2023 for detecting low ejection fraction (LEF) in patients at risk of heart failure. This device uses data from routine 12-lead ECGs to screen for LEF in adults. It was developed based on pioneering research from Mayo Clinic using over 100,000 ECG and echocardiogram data pairs from unique patients. In a clinical study of 16,000 racially diverse patients, ECG-AI LEF achieved an 84.5% sensitivity and 83.6% specificity for detecting LEF.
Anumana's technology aims to enhance disease detection at earlier, more treatable stages by identifying subtle signals in ECGs that are imperceptible to humans. The company's pipeline includes additional FDA breakthrough-designated algorithms for detecting pulmonary hypertension, cardiac amyloidosis, and hyperkalemia. These algorithms have been validated in over 75 peer-reviewed publications, including prospective studies published in Nature Medicine and The Lancet.
In 2022, Anumana received approval for two CPT III codes from the American Medical Association, establishing ECG-AI as a new innovative procedure. The company's solutions are designed for real-world physician use, integrating into existing clinical workflows at the point of care.
Anumana was founded in 2021 as a joint venture between nference and the Mayo Clinic to leverage their expertise in developing ECG-AI technology from an investigational resource to a clinical tool for clinicians. The company has established multi-year agreements with pharmaceutical partners, including Novartis and Pfizer, to drive the development and delivery of its AI-powered solutions.

Anumana is an AI-driven company that develops ECG algorithms enabling early disease diagnosis and intervention. Anumana harnesses industry-leading AI and translational science to decode the electrocardiogram (ECG) – like a deep predictive tool and biomarker of disease, empowering care providers to help patients early.

nference develops transformative technologies and products in healthcare. Their solutions enable scientists to discover and develop personalized diagnostics and treatments for patients. Their EMR data transforming into solutions for the healthcare ecosystem with medical centers and biopharmaceutical companies.

<div>Nference operates a biomedical knowledge synthesis platform that captures and analyzes health data, including unstructured information, to aid researchers in drug discovery. Its nSights platform, launched in<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220921005189/en/nference-Launches-AI-Driven-Platform-and-Expands-Partnership-with-Mayo-Clinic-Offering-Access-to-One-of-the-Deepest-Real-World-Data-Sets-in-the-Industry">September 2022</a>, allows users to access a broad range of de-identified healthcare data types, such as clinical notes, lab results, and imaging. This AI tool facilitates in-depth analysis and research, enabling users to explore data, generate hypotheses, and develop algorithms.</div>

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

AI Drug Discovery

nference to Present AI-Driven Research at 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting

Takeda

To use AI to enhance patient care in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

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

Anumana

Software that provides a list of possible diseases based on data collected from patients. Platforms are only used for initial assessments.

Mayo Clinic

Expanded the partnership to include research projects in digital pathology and heart rhythm diagnostics.

<div>
 
 Nference operates a biomedical knowledge synthesis platform that captures and analyzes health data, including unstructured information, to aid researchers in drug discovery. Its nSights platform, launched in 
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220921005189/en/nference-Launches-AI-Driven-Platform-and-Expands-Partnership-with-Mayo-Clinic-Offering-Access-to-One-of-the-Deepest-Real-World-Data-Sets-in-the-Industry">
 September 2022
 </a>
 , allows users to access a broad range of de-identified healthcare data types, such as clinical notes, lab results, and imaging. This AI tool facilitates in-depth analysis and research, enabling users to explore data, generate hypotheses, and develop algorithms.
 
 
 The platform provides access to patient data across multiple therapeutic areas, such as heart disease, cancer, metabolic, immune disorders, and infectious diseases. As of March 2024, the company claimed that the platform processes data from over 20 years, including 657 million clinical notes, 1.3 billion lab test results, and 10.2 billion flowsheets, covering over 11 million patient records.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company&rsquo;s customers include Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation when it entered a multi-year licensing agreement to grant the Foundation access to nference's nSights platform to advance global healthcare solutions (
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240206023301/en/nference-Announces-Multi-Year-Funding-from-Global-Foundation-to-Advance-Health-Equity#:~:text=CAMBRIDGE%2C%20Mass.%2D%2D(BUSINESS%20WIRE,the%20Bill%20%26%20Melinda%20Gates%20Foundation.">
 February 2024
 </a>
 ). In 2019, the company also provided Janssen Research &amp; Development to leverage its platform for drug discovery and clinical development.
 
 
 Furthermore, the company entered into a partnership with Mayo Clinic in 2017 to synthesize and analyze genomic and clinical data from Mayo Clinic and public databases. Nference was Mayo Clinic&rsquo;s first clinical data analytics platform partner. Other data partners include Duke Health, Banner Health (
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230822542860/en/Banner-Health-Partners-with-nference-to-Accelerate-Scientific-Discovery-for-Patient-Care">
 August 2023
 </a>
 ), Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Emory Healthcare (
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231205118996/en/nference-and-Emory-Healthcare-Collaborate-Adding-Another-Top-Ranked-Medical-Center-to-Federated-Data-Network">
 December 2023
 </a>
 ). In 
 <a href="https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-launches-new-technology-platform-ventures-to-revolutionize-diagnostic-medicine/">
 April 2021
 </a>
 , Mayo Clinic and Nference formed a joint venture to launch Anumana, a company aimed to develop and commercialize digital sensor diagnostics.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/1053">
 December 2020
 </a>
 , the company raised USD 60 million in a Series C funding round led by Matrix Capital Management. The funds were expected to be used to further develop its platform.
 
</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. 

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

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 nference, a healthcare data company based in Massachusetts, has partnered with Parabilis Medicines, a cancer therapeutics developer, for clinical development of FOG-001, a key treatment for colorectal cancer. Parabilis will have access to nference's machine learning-powered platform, nSights, which has collected extensive cancer patient data from various medical institutions. This partnership aims to enhance the clinical trial data for FOG-001 and identify potential patient groups and clinical markers more accurately. The collaboration's goal is to speed up the development of Helicon therapeutics for difficult-to-treat cancers in order to improve patient outcomes.
 
</div>

nference

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