Today, Cyclana Bio is announcing their £5M Pre-Seed Round. We co-led the round with Eka Ventures, and other participating investors include Wilbe and Cocoa VC. 

Cyclana Bio is merging computational and tissue-level biology to build a next-generation research and discovery platform. Cells exist in dynamic environments where signalling between immune cells, tissue-resident cells, and the extracellular matrix (ECM) shapes disease progression – factors most current models miss. Cyclana Bio is building a platform that captures that environment in rich detail. 

The team collects human tissue from the diseased site, applies novel tissue-engineering approaches to create a life-like context for drug screening, and harnesses the resulting data to inform new therapies.

We’re excited to invest for 3 reasons:

1. A Much-Needed First Indication

Cylana Bio’s first indication is endometriosis: a condition that affects 1 in 10 women globally and has no known cure. The current treatment market for endometriosis is about $2B, but many of these treatments focus on symptom management. 

Endometriosis occurs when endometrial cells invade the ECM of other tissues, triggering inflammation. Existing tissue models rarely account for the ECM and other microenvironmental drivers of disease. These interactions are the dark matter of disease: we know they’re there, but we haven’t been able to study them in depth, which is one reason the condition remains poorly understood. 

Cylana is building the first full human tissue model for endometriosis that will illuminate this full environment. It’s a critical first step toward developing a new generation of treatments.

2. A Gateway to a Massive, Underserved Market 

We love bioplatforms because they can develop multiple assets, generate diverse sources of revenue, and solve a myriad of problems. Cyclana Bio’s approach, specifically, represents a new way of approaching drug design: one that looks at the full, complex tissue environment where disease actually happens. 

They will begin with endometriosis, but their approach could be applicable to many other tissue-level diseases, like uterine cancer, infertility, inflammatory bowel disease, osteoarthritis, and more. 

The implications go beyond any single indication. As these conditions come into focus, the broader women’s health market is set to reach $30B by 2030. Learn more about the opportunity in women’s health by reading our thesis here.

3. A Top Team 

At early stage, the team is everything. Without the team, great IP (what we call “defensible magic”) is just an idea stuck in a lab. 

The Cyclana Bio team has the scientific and entrepreneurial chops to build a great company. The founding team met at Altos Labs, a leader in cellular health and rejuvenation. Together, they bring diverse scientific perspectives and expertise to the table: 

• Dr. Léa Wenger (Co-founder): PhD from Cambridge; background in veterinary medicine.
• Prof. Kevin Chalut (Co-founder & CSO): Professor (formerly at Cambridge University); expert in stem cell biology; former Principal Investigator at Altos Labs; founder of Stembond Technologies.
• Dr. Jonathan Griffiths (CTO): PhD from Cambridge in single-cell sequencing; led the epigenetics machine-learning team at Altos Labs.

Learn More about Cyclana Bio here.