🧬 This week's Austin Bio & Health Roundup brings new capital to deploy, fresh data, major clinical milestones, & important strategic acquisitions. 🧬 💰 Funding Arsenal Bridge Ventures is raising $150M to build bio startups. Based in Austin and New York, their explicit aim is to fuel emerging science beyond “traditional” hubs. More fuel for the Austin Bio & Health flywheel. Huge congrats Jim Graham CFA. I am very excited to see what’s to come. 📊 Data New data from Peter Walker at Carta breaks down median dilution & pre-money valuation for seed-stage companies by sector in 2024. For Bio & Health, the answer is...It depends. Biotech saw median dilution at 25.5%, the most of any sector, while Healthtech ranked 12th with 19.8%. Their pre-money valuations were quite similar, both just under $12M, putting them on the lower end for this stage compared to other sectors. Got to pump those numbers up!! 🚀 Launches, Expansions, Milestones, and Wins Somite Therapeutics, the AI driven cell therapy company, has been granted FDA Orphan Drug and Rare Pediatric Disease Designations for their lead program in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. At this rate, I may need to a create Somite section in the roundup! Amazing Micha Y. Breakstone 🇮🇱🎗️! Neuralink received Breakthrough Device Designation from the FDA for Blindsight. And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like! 🤝 M&A and Partnerships SubjectWell, a patient recruitment platform, is acquiring Trials24, a provider of patient recruitment solutions with a strong footprint in 13 European countries. Congrats Fred Martin on the next steps to building a truly global company. What’s Next?
Jani Tuomi
2mo
Thanks for sharing this Jason Scharf - this is really helpful to know!
Keep the insightful data coming Jason Scharf, love it!
Very Interesting