Persephone Biosciences, a San Diego, CA-based synthetic biology company, raised $15M in Seed funding.
The round was led by First Bight Ventures and Propel Bio Partners, with participation from Y Combinator, Fifty Years, Susa Ventures, American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Fund, Pioneer Fund, and ZhenFund, among others.
Founded in the summer of 2017 by synthetic and metabolic engineering pioneers, Stephanie Culler, Ph.D., and Steve Van Dien, Ph.D., Persephone Biosciences leverages synthetic biology for the development of microbial products that impact patient and infant health. Th company is building an end-to-end platform to industrialize the development of engineered cells that restore health to damaged human ecosystems.
The company intends to use the funds to advance the ARGONAUT trial (NCT04638751), the largest study ever conducted in the U.S. to identify biomarkers for cancer treatment and prevention by mapping the gut-immune axis. In December 2021, Persephone announced that Janssen Biotech, one of Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, would collaborate with the company on the colorectal cancer patient arm of ARGONAUT, and on an arm of additional healthy individuals with varying cancer risk. Then in April 2022, the company announced a collaboration with Ginkgo Bioworks to enable the synthetic biology tools needed to develop the next generation of microbial therapies.
FinSMEs
19/07/2022