IndieBio NY’s Demo Day Kickoff Video

SOSV’s IndieBio NY just held a demo day at its offices in Manhattan. Fifteen spectacular deep tech founders tackling human and planetary health took the stage in front of a packed audience of investors. The IndieBio NY team made this terrific video to kick off the event and introduce the main deep tech themes of the demo day. It’s a great peek inside the remarkable world of IndieBio NY. The list of companies that pitched is below.

Here are the themes of IndieBio NY’s demo day and brief descriptions of the companies within each.

New Modalities: Driving Innovation in Next-Generation Therapies

  • heXembio
    Rejuvenating human blood cells for improved healthspan.
  • Tinkeso Therapeutics
    Novel allogeneic Natural Killer T (NKT) cell therapies for oncology and autoimmune diseases.
  • Asta Bio
    Single-domain antibody-radioisotope conjugates for radio-immunotherapy that specifically target tumors, not the patient. 
  • BioLattice
    Eliminating the need for human donor corneal tissue by restoring sight with an artificial, full thickness corneal replacement.

Biological Pesticides: The Eco-Friendly Revolution Transforming Agriculture

  • BugBiome
    Outsmarting pests with microbiome-derived bioinsecticides, rivaling chemical solutions.
  • Quorum Earth  
    Using the power of the fungal kingdom to develop non-toxic biopesticides to save the bees.
  • Semion
    Activating plant defense mechanisms silenced during the process of domestication to develop novel pest control solutions.

The New Sustainability: Upcycling Waste

  • Mothership Materials
    Capturing new ingredients by molecularly upcycling agricultural waste, paving the way for a sustainable, circular, and traceable bioeconomy.
  • Capro-X
    Deploying open microbiome bio-refineries to upcycle waste to replace petrochemicals and palm oil with carbon-negative platform biochemicals.
  • Sci-Lume Labs
    Turning agricultural waste into a truly circular synthetic fiber, weaving a sustainable apparel future without oil or trash.
  • Tastee Tape
    Reducing the 13 million pounds of packaging film with a bio-based, health-conscious, affordable option.

Rewriting the Future: Transforming How We Build and Power the Future

  • Starstone
    Paving the way for low carbon concrete, using biology and fermentors instead of quarries and kilns.
  • Nanoplume
  • Manufacturing the next generation of ultra-insulating, affordable, bio-based aerogels to maximize energy efficiency across multiple industries.
  • Bactery
    Capturing green energy generated by bacteria found in soil for remote sensors and IoT devices.
  • Giraffe Bio
    Data-driven biomolecular design to boost the efficiency and sustainability of mining for critical minerals.

Announcing SOSV’s Women’s Health VC-Founder Matchup – February 3–7

Women’s health is gaining attention as a critical area for research, innovation, and investment. In its January 2024 report, McKinsey estimated that “Investments addressing the women’s health gap could add years to life and life to years—and potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040”.

Venture investment in startups focused on disease and conditions specific to women has been small compared to other health categories, but investment has more than tripled since 2018 according to SVB’s Dec 2023 report

In keeping with SOSV’s commitment to deep tech for human and planetary health, SOSV is one the leading VCs in the women’s health field (#2 most active globally according to Pitchbook), with 21 startups in our portfolio, and we are excited to announce that our next virtual VC-Founder Matchup event, February 3-7, is dedicated to the women’s health tech startup ecosystem. 

The event is 100% free and open to all investors and founders in the category.

Registration

Startup Registration | Investor Registration

  • January 13 – Registration opens
  • January 27 – Platform opens for meeting requests  
  • February  3-7 – Meetings take place 

More details below. 

What Are VC-Founder Matchups?

WHAT > SOSV Matchups are VIRTUAL, GLOBAL and FREE matchmaking events focused on specific themes and open to all investors and all early stage founders worldwide. Investors and founders supply detailed information at registration so that both sides can zero in on strong prospects and request meetings. 

WHY > SOSV hosts these matchups to better connect the investor-founder ecosystems related to human and planetary health. 

SCALE > Matchups vary in scale from 50+ to 1000+ participants depending on the scale of the ecosystem. Since 2022, more than 2,000 investors and close to 3,000 founders have participated, leading to thousands of meetings and numerous investments (SOSV alone already invested in 8 startups discovered during matchups).

DURATION > Matchups typically run over a week,  during which time participants take mutually agreed to 20 minute introductory meetings.

Who Should Attend

For this inaugural event, we expect 50+ startups and 100+ investors to join.

  • Startups: Startups focused on Women’s Health, from pre-seed up to series B.
  • Investors: VCs, CVCs, FOs, syndicates and angel investors with a checkbook.
  • Nobody else, please: Service providers, this event is not for you. 

What to Expect

  • Many High Quality Participants: A typical matchup attracts the top founders and investors in the ecosystem. 
  • 100% Matchmaking: No talks or panels. The Matchup is a unique opportunity to identify and connect quickly and efficiently with relevant founders and investors.
  • Detailed Startups Profiles: Filter startups easily according to their sector, location, funding stage and more.
  • Detailed Investors Profiles: Find who focuses on your sector, stage and geography.

FAQs

Q: Why are matchups one week long?

As it is virtual, it gives more opportunities to find times that fit your schedule.

Q: What is the duration of meetings?

Generally 20 minutes, with an option to extend.

Q: How many meetings can I book?

  • Investors: no limit
  • Founders: maximum of 20 pending requests. Your request is “refunded” if a meeting is either confirmed, canceled or declined (note: most investors will simply ignore requests they do not find relevant).

Q: I’m a founder. No one is responding to my requests.

Active investors accept about 10% of requests. Better targeting leads to better results.

Q: I’m a founder. Should I include my pitch deck?

It’s better. Most investors will check your pitch deck before committing to a meeting.

Q: The platform is not convenient. Can I connect outside?

Yes. You can use Calendly to set up meetings using Zoom, Teams, LinkedIn, etc.

Past Participants

Past participants include prominent VC and CVC firms such as:

3M Ventures, 8VC, AlleyCorp, ARCH Venture Partners, Astanor Ventures, BASF Venture, Box Group, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bosch Ventures, Cargill, Coatue Management, Collaborative Fund, Counteract, DCVC, Dow, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Global Brain, H&M Group Ventures, Honda Xcelerator Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Joyance Partners, Khosla Ventures, Illumina Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, Merck, Plum Alley, Ponderosa Ventures, Prelude Ventures, ReGen Ventures, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Siemens, Sony, Speedinvest, Stanley Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation of Americas, Systemiq Capital, The Engine Accelerator, Touchdown Ventures, Verge HealthTech Fund, Wavemaker 360 .

How to Get Involved

Stay tuned for registration details and agenda updates for each Matchup. We can’t wait to see you at one—or all—of our 2025 Matchups!

Sign up to SOSV’s newsletter to hear about upcoming events.

Rybodyn Discovers Cryptic Human Proteome, Secures $4M for Novel Cancer Immunotherapy Advancements

Rybodyn, Inc. is making waves in biotech with its groundbreaking discovery of a cryptic human proteome and a $4 million pre-seed funding round. A 2024 graduate of SOSV’s IndieBio SF, Rybodyn is targeting the dark proteome to pioneer first-in-class immunotherapies for cancer – with the potential to address a wide range of other diseases as well.

At the heart of Rybodyn’s breakthrough is RyboCypher™, a proprietary RNA sequencing technology that identifies RNA molecules previously overlooked by next-generation sequencing methods. Already, RyboCypher™ has uncovered thousands of previously unrecognized protein fragments, or peptides, on cell surfaces. Of the over 8,000 fragments identified, approximately 1,000 are cancer-cell specific, presenting new opportunities for therapeutic development.

“We knew this class of RNA molecules existed in cells before we developed RyboCypher™ to observe them at high resolution. What we didn’t realize was how much protein is being produced from them,” says Dr. Corey Dambacher, Co-founder and President of Rybodyn in the company’s recent press release. “We now have a scalable way to find and validate these peptides for making new immunotherapies.”

The cryptic human proteome resides in regions of the genome once dismissed as “junk” DNA. Many of these newly discovered proteins, designated as Dark Targets™, are druggable peptides uniquely expressed on cancer cells, making them ideal for immunotherapy. “What sets Rybodyn apart from other dark genome startups is their novel method for visualizing a dark proteome that others can’t see,” says Po Bronson, General Partner at SOSV and Managing Director of IndieBio SF.

The round was co-led by Genedant Capital and SeaX Ventures, with significant participation from SOSV and Swell VC. Rybodyn plans to use the new funding to expand its target discovery and accelerate drug development. Dr. Imad Ajjawi, CEO and co-founder of RyboDyn says, “Our goal is to build a premier pipeline of first-in-class, next-generation immunotherapies, developed both internally and in partnership with large pharmaceutical companies.”

Proton Intelligence closes a $6.95M seed round for continuous potassium monitoring

Potassium imbalances can be life-threatening, especially for those with chronic kidney disease (estimated to be 10% of the population worldwide) or at risk of heart failure. Proton Intelligence has raised a $6.95M seed round to accelerate their work on a continuous potassium monitor that aims revolutionize clinical care for at risk patients. Participants in the round included SOSV, We Venture Capital (Werfen), Tenmile, LongeVC, 15th Rock, Exor, and Trampoline Venture Partners. 

Founded by Sahan Ranamukhaarachchi and Victor Cadarso, who bring a decade of expertise in wearable biosensors, Canada-based Proton Intelligence is preparing for human trials and the goal is to bring the product to market in 2027. (Not 2025, as mistakenly reported in TechCrunch.)

“We are proud to be the first institutional investor in Proton Intelligence,” said Mohan S. Iyer, General Partner at SOSV, “and we are excited to continue to support them as they move into clinical validation.” SOSV invested at pre-seed as well as the new seed round, and Proton Intelligence is an alum of SOSV’s IndieBio SF deep tech program.

Read the full story on TechCrunch.

Unibaio wins the $1M grand prize in ESD’s Grow-NY International Food and Agriculture Business Competition

In a competition that attracted 300 applications, agri-tech innovation company Unibaio (IndieBio NY) took the $1 million grand prize in the sixth annual Grow-NY International Food and Agriculture Business Competition run by Empire State Development. Their technology supercharges biological crop protectants by enabling them to penetrate plants more efficiently.

Farmers spend nearly $230 billion every year on herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers designed to increase crop yields. Most of these chemicals leach into the environment rather than being absorbed by crops, which causes pest resistance to biocides, biodiversity loss, and many public health impacts. According to Unibaio, their particles can both increase the effectiveness of agrochemicals and reduce application doses up to 80%.

AS Grow-NY Program Director Jenn Smith noteD in a press release announcing the winner, “Through the Grow-NY competition we’ve touched more than 1,800 startups wanting to build their businesses in Upstate NY. This year’s finalists are all exceptional, and we are thrilled to add Unibaio to our portfolio of ventures growing in the region.” 

Unibaio CEO and Co-Founder Matia Figliozzi shared that winning is not only a “dream come true,” it’s also “validation of our team’s hard work, innovation and dedication to creating a solution that will have a lasting impact on farming.” Unibaio is a graduate of IndieBio NY’s batch 7. IndieBio NY is based at 7 Penn Plaza in Manhattan.

Posted in Ag

OneSkin closes $7M Series A, accelerating their groundbreaking efforts in skin health and longevity

Skin health and longevity pioneers OneSkin, an alum of our IndieBio SF (2016), have closed their Series A, bringing total funding to date to $20M. Led by Selva Ventures alongside PLUS Capital, Unilever Ventures, SOSV and others, the raise empowers the brand to enter a new phase of growth and innovation in skin health.   

As reported in StreetInsider and WWD, OneSkin is a first-to-market category leader in science-led topical skin longevity treatments, whose patented ingredient, OS-01, is the first peptide scientifically proven to reverse skin’s biological age by preventing the accumulation of senescent cells. 

The startup landed on Fast Company’s list of Most Innovative Companies of 2024. Loyal users include Alana Hadid, Georgia May Jagger, Katy Perry, and more than a few SOSV employees. 

OneSkin was founded by four female Brazilian scientists. Commenting on the $7M in new funding, OneSkin Co-Founder and CEO Carolina Oliveira said the funding will “drive our mission to transform how we think about our skin, not only by optimizing our aesthetics using cutting-edge science, but also focusing on its functional role as our largest organ and the impact in our overall health and longevity.”

From their early days in the lab at IndieBio, to the discovery of OS-1, to taking the world of skin health and longevity by storm, OneSkin’s journey has been exhilarating to witness and support. With OS-1 already expanding skin’s health and lifespan, we (and our skin) can’t wait to see what they’ll do next! 

Watch the SOSV Climate Tech Summit sessions on demand

SOSV hosted the fourth SOSV Climate Tech Summit and the VC-Founder Climate Matchup over Oct. 14-18. So far, about 10,000 people have participated by watching the main stage interviews, joining in the live breakout sessions, engaging in VC-founder pitches, or watching session replays on YouTube. Our goal at the summit is to deepen the ecosystem around climate tech, and it’s safe to say we nudged things in the right direction! Below is a list of the main stage sessions and breakouts, with links to the videos on YouTube. If you would like to view more detail for each session, including the speakers, you can find that on the agenda at the summit website.

October 16, 2024

October 17, 2024

October 14-18, 2024


Announcing IndieBio New York Demo Day, January 24

Note: This event took place on January 24, 2024. You can watch the replay of the demo day here.

IndieBio New York is hosting its first demo day of the year, on January 24, 2024.

The demo day will feature nine companies fresh out of IndieBio NY’s program (cohort #7) that are working on breakthrough innovations in climate-resilient agriculture, diagnostics, carbon & methane upcycling, cancer therapeutics, and more. TechCrunch recently published the companies with brief descriptions here. There are three ways to participate: in-person (investors only), virtual (investors only – includes access to decks and founders’ Calendly links) and virtual (general admission). Here are the links to register:

  • In-Person for Investors: 1/24 from 2:00 – 5:00 PM EST  Register
  • Virtual for Investors: 1/24 at 5:00 PM EST – Register
  • Virtual for General Audience: 1/24 at 5:00 PM EST – Register

For the in-person event, we will send the demo day location to registrants once they are verified. For the virtual events, we will send links shortly in advance of the event. SOSV will verify the registrations for both investor-only editions of the demo day. 

SOSV startup competition focused on CO2 capture and removal. Early stage founders welcome. Application deadline July 28.

As part of the upcoming SOSV Climate Tech Summit—taking place virtually September 26-27th this year— we’re thrilled to announce our partnership with Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) to host a Startup Innovation Challenge (aka a startup competition!) focused on Carbon Removal and Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage (CCUS). Apply here—the deadline is July 28.

The competition is open to all early-stage startups (Series A or earlier) that are focusing on Carbon Removal and Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage anywhere in the world. 

An expert team will review the applications and select five finalists, who will pitch before a live, online audience and judges at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit on September 26. The judges will announce the winner the next day during the summit. 

Why participate? The finalists will pitch live to an online audience of VCs, and video archives from the pitch will be published on SOSV’s site after the event. Overall, we expect 5,000 attendees at the summit. There’s no better place for climate founders to find investors. Check out this year’s speakers.

The third annual SOSV Climate Tech Summit convenes the entire climate tech ecosystem, including technologists, founders, investors, and researchers across the climate tech startup ecosystem. The summit will include two days of main-stage sessions featuring noted climate founders and investors, as well as breakout sessions with more than 20 major climate investors. Don’t forget to register! (It’s free!).

Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) is the world’s largest startup competition that aims to help startups change the world for the better. Founded by Silicon Valley venture capitalists, Young Sohn and Bill Tai, their mission is to empower entrepreneurs building innovative technologies that improve the world.


One more thing: Separately from the Startup Innovation Challenge, SOSV is also hosting the invitation-only Climate Tech Matchup for founders and VCs that was so successful last year, attracting 500 investors and 1500 founder-investor meetings in 2022.  Applications for the matchup will open in August. 

Founders, VCs: Join SOSV’s Human Health Matchup April 3-7

Human health is one of the twin missions at SOSV, right alongside planetary health. SOSV’s very deep health portfolio spans the HAX and IndieBio startup development programs in categories including diagnostics, therapeutics, medical devices, computational biology, assistive robotics, and more, in line with the SOSV Human Health 100 published last year.

That’s why on April 3-7, SOSV is hosting an ecosystem-wide Human Health Matchup. It’s virtual, on the Grip platform. It’s open to all (not just SOSV) health founders and investors. And we’re inviting M&A folks as well. The matchup is 100% free to participants.

Our goal is to help innovators in health tech meet new investors as well as connect with other founders and the corporate / bank M&A folks. 

The project is modeled on SOSV’s hugely successful climate tech matchup last fall, which produced over 1000 founder-investor meetings over four days.

The matchup event format is simple:

  • Until March 20: Apply Startup | Investor | M&A
  • March 21: We will send participants a link to the Grip platform, where they can start requesting meetings.
  • April 3-7: Meetings take place. Default meeting time is ten minutes, with an option to extend.

Because this isn’t our first matchup rodeo, we can say with a lot of confidence that if you register and request meetings, you will make valuable new contacts. Both founders and investors were super appreciative of the climate event last year and 90+% were eager to do it again.

So please join us!

Announcing the SOSV Climate Tech Agenda

Welcome to the agenda for the main stage of the SOSV Climate Tech Summit. The event is virtual, free and will be held on Oct. 25-26, starting at 8 a.m. PDT. Register today. 

The main stage features conversations between the world’s top climate founders and investors across all the major categories of climate tech – from energy to industry and food. The conversations will be moderated by editors and reporters from TechCrunch, Bloomberg, The Economist, MIT Technology Review and more. 

In addition to the sessions below, there will also be a track of more than 20 live breakout sessions led by the top early stage investors, including SOSV (HAX and IndieBio), Khosla Ventures, DCVC, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Energy Impact Partners, Fifty Years, World Fund, Pale Blue Dot, MCJ Collective and more. Their presentations are designed to help founders understand better how these firms make investment decisions. Register today.

The SOSV Climate Tech Summit is designed to convene the emerging climate tech startup and investment ecosystem, which is relatively new and very global. More than 70 new venture climate funds launched in the past year, and hundreds of new climate-focused startups took shape. The summit aims to expand access to information within the ecosystem and deepen the person-to-person connections essential to startup ecosystems. 

Join us at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit and get to know the people, startups and investors building the this vital tech ecosystem.

The Agenda

Biotherapeutics company Prellis Bio appoints new CEO, raises $35M series C

Biotherapeutics company Prellis Biologics (IndieBio SF05 2017) has appointed Michael Nohaile, PhD as its new CEO, according to a Business Wire press release, “Prellis Biologics Appoints New CEO, Raises $35 Million in Series C Funding to Leverage Human Immune System Biology to De-Risk and Accelerate Therapeutics Drug Discovery and Development”

Prellis Biologics CEO Michael Nohaile, PhD
Prellis Biologics CEO Michael Nohaile, PhD. Source: Business Wire

The company also announced a $35 million in a series C funding round, co-led by Avidity Partners and Celesta Capital. The funding round received support from SOSVKhosla VenturesTrue Ventures, and Lucas Venture Group—bringing Prellis Biologics total funding to date to $64.5 million, Business Wire reports.

Prellis Bio’s industry-leading two-photon holographic technology supports 3D printing of large, complex tissue co-culture systems, such as LNOsTM (Lymph Node Organoids) that recapitulate human immune responses in vitro. The EXIS platform incorporates LNOs for the discovery of fully human antibodies with broad genetic diversity in as little as three to four weeks. In addition, EXIS enables assessment of immunogenicity in response to therapeutic candidates.

“The LNO technology represents a significant breakthrough in access to human immunobiology. Previously, immune cells were expected to respond without the biological context of a functional lymph node,” said Dr. Melanie Matheu, the founder of Prellis. “With 3D printed LNOs, we have the opportunity to accelerate drug discovery and development, while acquiring data on human immune responses all outside of the context of a clinical trial.”

Dr. Nohaile joins from Generate Biomedicines and succeeds Dr. Matheu, who will assume the role of Chief Technology Officer and retain a Board seat. Dr. Nohaile brings deep industry experience and expertise in leveraging innovative technologies for therapeutic discovery and development. Prior to his role as Chief Scientific Officer of Flagship company Generate Biomedicines, he was SVP of Strategy, Commercialization, and Innovation at Amgen, and Global Head of Molecular Diagnostics at Novartis.

“I am honored to join the Prellis Bio team and to partner with Melanie and the entire Prellis team to further build on their inspiring vision for the next generation of medicines,” Dr. Nohaile said in the press release. “This new chapter and investment will enable our team to bring better medicines to patients who desperately need them.”

Canaery raises $4M to make dog’s nose into neural scent interface

Image of dog head and nose

In “What does a dog’s nose know? A.I. may soon tell us”, Fortune spotlights Canaery (IndieBio SF11), a startup replicating the olfactory abilities of dogs with neurotechnology. In a seed funding round led by Breakout Ventures, Canaery recently raised $4M, according to Fortune. Dolby Family Ventures, KdT Ventures, and SOSV participated in the round. 

Canaery is developing a small electrode array to be placed on a dog’s olfactory bulb, picking up signals when neurons in the bulb fire and sending that data wirelessly to a computer attached to the dog’s collar. Fortune reports that Canaery is also training AI software to associate scents with particular firing patterns. The company, which will launch field trials of its technology using rats by the end of 2022, foresees its end product revolutionizing applications from border security to medical diagnosis. 

Canaery’s founder and CEO Gabriel Lavella told Fortune, “This does for scent what machine vision did for sight.”

Watch IndieBio NY’s Spring 2022 Class 04 Demo Day

It was definitely a night to remember! After months of hard work, many came together to celebrate the milestones and accomplishments our Class 04 companies achieved during our Spring 2022 program. The event began with opening remarks from Joan Spivak, Senior Director, Life Sciences for Empire State Development, an organization that we are proud to partner with as we work together to build and strengthen the life science and deep tech ecosystem here in New York and beyond. In addition to hearing about each company’s mission, IBNY’s Program and Partnership Coordinator, Maddy Behr detailed what our unique startup development program offers to each team and ways that industry and professional experts can collaborate with us while Alex Hall-Daniels and Lindsay Atkeson, IBNY’s Business Analysts, discussed upcoming future trends in human and planetary health. After each company shared how they were solving issues across three sectors (Therapeutics, Diagnostics, and Industrial and Agriculture Tech), there was a palpable excitement and energy to help these teams succeed in the room. Below, you can find a detailed list of each company and ways to contact them to learn more.

Interested in applying? We are currently accepting applications for our upcoming IBNY05 Fall 2022 cohort here.

Therapeutics

Diagnostics

Industrial and Agricultural Tech

Meet Pae Wu, the new general partner at SOSV’s IndieBio in San Francisco

Pae Wu photo

Pae Wu is the newest general partner at SOSV. She runs IndieBio SF with fellow SOSV general partner Po Bronson. Pae is also the CTO of the program. 

Prior to joining IndieBio in 2020, Pae served as the Scientific Director of Telefónica’s moonshot factory – Alpha (Barcelona), Science Director at the US Office of Naval Research – Global (Singapore), and technical consultant at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).  She holds degrees in Electrical Engineering from Duke (PhD) and Princeton (BS).

Here are a few questions we asked Pae to mark the start of her new role.

Pae Wu photo
SOSV General Partner Pae Wu

Why IndieBio? 

Simply put, this place is an enabler of people who have great ideas and a genuine desire to bring positive change to the world. There are those in the industry who gate-keep and those who enable – I wanted to be with the enablers. 

But wait, you’re not a biologist, you’re an electrical engineer! How does that work?

I was met with a lot of resistance

Actually not true at all – I came out of academia at a time when biology was hitting its stride as something humans could engineer.  I was lucky to help the US government deploy huge sums of early R&D funding to accelerate biology’s transition into an engineering discipline.  The last decade or so, my portfolio has expanded to encompass the broad intersection between engineering and biology.  Really what I’ve learned through the years is that the most interesting new technologies emerge at the interfaces of seemingly disparate disciplines – semiconductors and molecular biology, neurobiology and phase-change materials.  So pretty much I spend my days mashing up topics that pique my curiosity.  

Engineers basically look at the world and try to figure out how to control systems to do useful things.  This is applicable whether the system in question is living or not.  What I’m saying is, if a company is trying to build a business that solves a big problem, there are inputs and outputs that matter and it’s OK to me if it’s electrons, photons, or neurons. 

What’s been the biggest surprise since you started working with biology-based startups?

What’s been exhilarating in my time here at IndieBio is how committed our team is to the mission of solving problems of human and planetary health.  That’s allowed us to really flex the definition of what is an IndieBio company.  Beyond biology, we’ve taken a more agnostic approach to solving problems like the decarbonization of heavy industries, to include physics and chemistry-based technologies.  

IndieBio is a place of great optimism.  Every day I’m inspired by our founders who have the mettle to see big existential problems as an opportunity to do an audacious thing.  Most of them leave academia or healthy careers to bring this thing to reality out of a sense of mission.  Here in the Ivory Basement, as Arvind calls it, I am constantly reminded of what a huge responsibility we have to these founders to launch sector-defining companies both from souvenirs left by the amazing alumni Arvind, Po, Jun, Alex, Parikshit, and Maya nurtured all these years and from the constant energy of the current founders pulling the long hours in the lab.  

IndieBio covers a lot of ground, from pharmaceuticals to bioreactors, CRISPR technologies and alternative proteins. How do you make sense out of all that? 

Very carefully. 

Is there such a thing as too much non-dilutive money?

There is such a thing as too much of the wrong kind of non-dilutive money.  One thing that I remind founders is that the cadence of capital from the government does not align with the cadence of execution for a venture-backed start-up.  Plus, it’s only mostly free money – trust me, I’ve read the required proposals, budgets, and reports and know the time and energy those take to generate. 

The ecosystem is growing flush with other forms of non-dilutive support for deep tech founders, which is largely great, as long as start-ups continue to move quickly.  There’s a reality behind the romantic vision of the lean and gritty start-up.   

In short: Don’t let your non-dilutive funding steer your execution.       

Can you tell us just one thing about DARPA that only DARPA people would know?

Sorry, I have to run to another meeting.

Meat the Future: Behind the Scenes of the Next Agricultural Revolution – December 7

Join SOSV and IndieBio for a panel discussion about the forthcoming “Meat the Future” documentary. This virtual event on December 7, 5:30-6:30 pm PT, is free and open to the public. Register on Hopin.

Told over the span of five years (2016 – 2021), the award-winning documentary Meat the Future chronicles the birth and acceleration of the cultivated meat revolution through the journey of Mayo Clinic-trained cardiologist Dr. Uma Valeti, the co-founder and CEO of Upside Foods (previously Memphis Meats). 

Tune in for a live conversation with Uma Valeti and Meat the Future Director Liz Marshall. Joining them will be Po Bronson, Managing Director of SOSV’s IndieBio, the startup program where Upside Foods produced the first ever cultured meatball in 2016. The panel will be moderated by journalist and author Amanda Little, who is in the film and writes about the environment, agriculture, and innovation. 

The group will discuss the significance of the film, the rapidly evolving cultured-meat industry, and a world where real meat is produced sustainably without the need to breed, raise, and slaughter animals. 

This event is a co-production of SOSV IndieBio and The Redford Center.

Deep Tech NYC Meetup with SOSV’s HAX and IndieBio on Nov. 17

Deep Tech NYC

Join Venture Capital firm SOSV’s deep-tech programs IndieBio and HAX, and tech networking app Supermomos, for drinks and networking.

Come enjoy drinks with deep-tech VC’s, founders, engineers, scientists, and ecosystem partners. If you’re interested in starting a company or already a founder, if you work at a tech company or are looking for a job at a deep tech startup, you’re encouraged to attend and connect! Register here.

Where: The Crooked Knife, 232 West 14th Street, New York, NY

SOSV Climate Tech 100 Startups value grows by 44% in 5 months

On Earth Day, April 22, 2021, SOSV published its SOSV Climate Tech 100 list, a collection of the top climate tech companies in our portfolio. The list was notable because the companies up to that point had raised $1.85 billion from investors (including $89 million from SOSV), and had a market cap in aggregate of $5.65 billion.

Techcrunch reported on those numbers and commented that SOSV’s “planetary health’ mission was “paying off.” We subsequently published detailed analyses of the list’s founders and investors, and we announced an Oct. 20–21 event called the SOSV Climate Tech Summit, aimed at helping the climate ecosystem move faster.

Now it’s nearly five months later, and the Climate Tech 100 list financials are due for an update. Thanks to the strength of the companies on the list as well as a powerful surge in climate tech venture investing, the financials for the 100 have taken a big step forward.

  • The SOSV Climate Tech 100 aggregate value has jumped from $5.7 billion to over $8.1 billion, an increase of 44%.
  • Total investment in the 100 increased $508 million to reach $2.36 billion, an increase of nearly 28%.
  • SOSV topped off its investments with $13.8M to reach $103 million, an increase of 15.5%.

Join IndieBio at the SOSV Climate Tech Summit

IndieBio will be a big part of the SOSV Climate Tech Summit on Oct. 20-21. The event is virtual and free. The summit’s purpose is to convene the founders, investors, technologists, corporates, media and anyone else keen to understand and accelerate the climate tech startup ecosystem. Read more about the event here. Register here.

Several IndieBio folks are a part in the programming, including Po Bronson, Arvind Gupta, Pae Wu and Gwen Cheni, and so are IndieBio alums like Dr. Uma Valeti, CEO and founder of UPSIDEFoods. There are also many speakers on the main stage, the majority in fact, who are not from SOSV and represent some the best minds at work across startup climate tech. You can see all the speakers announced so far here.

In order to help both founders and investors, one very special feature of the summit is a series of 18 breakout sessions dedicated to early stage investors, incubators and government agencies that have a strong track record working with pre-seed and seed climate tech startups. They range from SOSV’s IndieBio and HAX, to TechStars, The Engine, DVCV, MassChallenge, the NSF and ARPA-e, Greentown Labs, Energy Impact Partners, and more. Look for the full list to be published soon. The sessions will be led by senior partners at those outfits and focus on what they have to offer climate tech founders. The breakouts will be staged one after another so that founders can easily catch them all. The sessions will also be live with plenty of time for audience questions.

Finally, the summit will offer an Expo that features some of the top climate tech companies from all the programs that are offering breakout sessions. SOSV is offering Expo spots to all the companies that are part of the SOSV Climate Tech 100.

The SOSV team is working hard to produce a great event that really benefits everyone in the climate ecosystem who is working hard on breakthroughs that will help address climate change. Please join us at the event. It’s free and virtual. Register here.