Penn Startups Raising Capital – Spring 2022

PCI supports and facilitates startup formation and growth through our startup creation programs and our licensing partnerships. This list of Penn affiliated startups are actively fundraising. For more information and to directly contact these companies, email: pciinfo@pci.upenn.edu

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Digital Health Companies

• CareAlign (seed) is a HIPAA Complaint task management platform that reduces the risk of communication related medical errors while also reducing the documentation burden on providers of care. Half of CareAlign’s customers use the platform stand-alone while the other half integrate CareAlign into their EHR to create a paperless rounding and handoff experience.
• Cogwear (seed) is creating the first clinical-grade, cognitive wearable for active situations powered by nanotechnology sensors, machine learning, and breakthrough science. Their nanotechnology EEG sensors perform as well as the best clinical-grade wet electrodes, with the convenience and longevity of dry electrodes, to provide high-quality brain insights on the go.
• Galileo (seed) is developing decision support tools for medical professionals assessing medical images.
• Neuralert Technologies (seed) is developing an automated stroke detection system for the acute care hospital market where 10% of all strokes occur. Non-invasive, wearable devices attached to a patients’ wrists monitor for asymmetric arm movement/weakness, transmits telemetry data to a proprietary algorithm to rapidly identify stroke symptoms, and sends an alert to medical staff to quickly begin stroke-mitigation treatment, saving lives, improving outcomes and reducing cost.
• Quantaras (series A) offers advanced body-wide quantification of medical images for applications in radiology, radiation oncology, and medical oncology. Its unique Automatic Anatomy Recognition software supports recognition and delineation of anatomical objects and diseased tissue in multiple body regions in MRI, CT, and PET/CT images. Formerly QRS.
• TAIRIS (seed) is improving neurosurgery and neurosurgeons through anatomical pattern recognition assistance.
• VitalCore (seed) integrates the monitoring and management of connected medical devices throughout a hospital system.
• Vital Start Health‘s focus is on complete well-being & mental health as the fifth Vital Sign, clinically guided, measurable and personalized for each person at every stage of their care journey.

Diagnostic Companies

• Chip Diagnostics (series A) is commercializing an innovative hardware and data/AI informatics platform, used to develop novel, exosome-based biomarker signatures for early disease diagnostics and therapy management. Our solutions enable extremely accurate “fingerprinting” of a broad range of disease states, offering inexpensive, and less time and resource-intensive workflows across drug discovery and diagnostics use cases.
• Exio Biosciences (series A) is pioneering a predictive and prognostic blood-based biomarker test to ensure optimal immunotherapy treatment for cancer patients. The first application focuses on detecting exosomal PD-L1 to stratify patients as clinical responders versus non-responders to checkpoint immunotherapy.
• FloBio (series A) is developing a rapid, near patient diagnostic for bleeding and thrombotic risk in emergency and critical care settings. Using our microfluidic platform technology that mimics the body’s blood clotting process, FloBio’s first product fills the information gap in managing the treatment of at-risk patients on direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), where no widely accessible or FDA approved test is available.
• Instanosis (seed) enables rapid and portable detection and quantitation of extremely low concentrations of biomarkers across many diseases using simple smartphone and advanced data algorithms. This first-of-its-kind technology is hundreds of times more sensitive than state-of-the-art, at much lower cost, leading to accurate and instantly actionable results and cost savings for research, clinical trials, disease diagnosis and monitoring

Therapeutics Companies

• Cantius Therapeutics (seed) has a unique and well-placed strategy to treat cachexia and block nausea/emesis. GRASP technology utilizes small peptides that penetrate the brainstem to antagonize the GFRAL-Ret receptor complex. This receptor complex, expressed exclusively in the brainstem, was recently established as the sole mediator of GDF15 (MIC-1) signaling, a cytokine critical in disease-induced cachexia, anorexia, and emetic behaviors from cancer, chemotherapy, and pregnancy-induced morning sickness.
• Carisma Therapeutics (series C) is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing a differentiated and proprietary cell therapy platform focused on engineered macrophages, cells that play a crucial role in both the innate and adaptive immune response. The first applications of the platform are autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-macrophages for the treatment of solid tumors.
• Carousel Therapeutics (series A) is blazing the trail for adaptable and controllable cell therapy medicines to treat cancer, using their next generation Sortase Universal Immune Receptor. Their best-in-class switchable CAR platform provides flexible antigen targeting while addressing safety and persistence challenges of earlier cell therapies.
• EpiVario (series A) is a preclinical stage biotechnology company that is developing neuroepigenetic modulators to treat memory related psychiatric disorders. Our newly discovered epigenetic regulatory mechanism, ACSS2, provides a target for treating memory-related neuropsychiatric disorders. Based on this paradigm-shifting finding, EpiVario is developing pharmacotherapeutics to treat anxiety and addiction disorders, including PTSD and alcohol use disorder.
• Hysplex (seed) is developing small molecule PARP inhibitors for the treatment of cancer and neurological disorders.
• Innervace (series A) is developing the first implantable, tissue engineered neural pathways that can physically reconstruct lost brain circuitry in patients. The first indication of this platform is for treating patients with neurodegenerative disorders, in particular with Parkinson’s disease.
• Intervir (series A) is a pre-clinical stage biotechnology company with an experienced drug discovery team that is focused on first in-class antiviral therapeutics. Intervir’s novel, host-oriented mechanism of action disrupts budding, release and dissemination of viruses. Target indications are deadly hemorrhagic viruses and emerging and mutating viruses such as SARS-CoV2. The company is seeking funding of $7 million to advance through a phase I trial.
• LignaMed (series A) is dedicated to developing breakthrough treatments for asthma, organ transplant viability, and fibrosis.
• Linnaeus Therapeutics (series C) is a privately held clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel small molecule oncology therapeutics that target G-protein coupled receptors.
• Mechano Therapeutics (seed) is developing mechanical-activated microcapsule technology to deliver therapeutics in response to mechanical perturbation for the regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues.
• Pinpoint Therapeutics (series A) is developing novel cancer treatment options aimed to specifically inhibit autophagy, a key cell survival and treatment resistance pathway in cancer. Pinpoint inhibitors target a recently discovered enzyme in the autophagy pathway called PPT1, which is highly expressed across most cancers. These inhibitors could be applied to a broad range of cancers alone or in combination to overcome therapy resistance.
• Trevarx LLC (seed) is developing a PARP inhibitor theragnostic platform to treat cancers. The combination of molecular imaging and radionuclide therapy is designed to precisely target specific tumor tissue.
• Verismo Therapeutics (series A) is pioneering novel chimeric antigen receptor T-cells for cancer using CARs engineered to mimic the natural multichain design of killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs), an important family of immunologic receptors used by T- cells and NK cells. This novel KIR-CAR design is anticipated to improve persistence and efficacy against the most aggressive solid tumors.
• Vetigenics (series A) is an animal health biopharmaceutical company committed to improving the health of companion animals through the development of entirely species-specific, safe and effective antibody-based immunotherapies to treat their cancers and other chronic diseases.
• ViTToria Biotherapeutics, Inc (series A) aims to transcend the current limitations of chimeric antigen receptor therapeutics by employing novel cell engineering and gene editing technologies to create therapies that address unmet clinical needs.

Medical Device Companies

Neoneur (seed) is focused on the monitoring and assessment of neonate and infant feeding development, a key development parameter.

Advanced Materials Companies

EnaChip (series A) is developing and commercializing a disruptive technology platform compatible with existing semiconductor manufacturing. Their innovative materials and manufacturing process for power management components, that exist in every electronic device, enables up to 70% solution size reduction, up to 30% efficiency increase, and up to 3X cost reduction.