We’re excited to announce today that Two Sigma Ventures is joining Euclidean Capital, Lux Capital, The Column Group, Polaris Partners, Illumina Ventures, and other investors in Kallyope’s $66M Series B.
When we first met Nancy, Rob, Ian, Justin, and the Kallyope team, we were hooked. Founded by Charles Zuker, Ph.D., Lasker Award winner Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, M.D., Kallyope marks what we believe to be one of the most important trends of the past decade, and one we’ve been passionate about investing in over the past few years: the intersection of data science with biology and genomics.
Kallyope is pioneering a new approach to drug discovery by targeting and mapping the gut-brain axis. In only two years since launching, we believe that Kallyope has emerged as one of the most promising companies in New York City’s growing biotech community. With over 45 employees and growing, they’ve developed a state-of-the-art platform that uses single-cell sequencing, computational biology, and circuit-mapping technologies to develop new classes of drugs targeting metabolic and neurological disorders.
Kallyope is capitalizing on advances in a number of technologies: 1) new sequencing techniques that make it possible and affordable to conduct high-throughput single-cell RNA profiling; 2) the decrease in cloud computing costs that allow Kallyope to apply computational biology approaches at scale in a cost-efficient manner; and 3) advances in biotechnologies, such as availability of genetic models, organoids, and optogenetics, that make it possible for Kallyope to test their circuit-mapping hypothesis and quickly iterate on early drug targets.
Kallyope’s goal of mapping the gut-brain circuits fits perfectly with Two Sigma’s thesis that biology will increasingly be elucidated using computational approaches and insights from novel datasets, and participating in their Series B posed a great opportunity for us to make an investment in what we believe to be a highly promising space that has the possibility to fulfill massive unmet needs and improve human health.
We look forward to harnessing the resources of Two Sigma, including the expertise of our hundreds of data scientists and quantitative engineers, to help support Kallyope through this next phase of growth as they continue identifying new compounds and work on bringing them closer to the clinic.
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