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This former Googler’s stealth startup helps scientists design proteins using AI. Check out the 16-slide deck Cradle used to raise $5.4 million in seed funding.
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- Biotech startup Cradle just raised $5.4 million from Index Ventures and Kindred Capital.
- Its technology uses machine learning to help scientists design proteins more efficiently.
- Check out the 16-slide deck Cradle used to raise the fresh funds.
A startup that enables scientists to design proteins using AI has just exited stealth mode and secured $5.4 million in seed funding.
Dutch firm Cradle uses generative machine learning models to help scientists engineer proteins and their properties. The firm was cofounded by Stef van Grieken, a former product manager at Google and an AI specialist before that, and bioengineering expert Elise de Reus.
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It deploys natural language processing, a technology that can allow biologists to predict what element of a protein’s genetic code needs to be changed so that the protein is more stable once it’s altered.
“A cell is like a small factory. Inside that factory are proteins, which behave like machines,” said Stef van Grieken. “Cells can turn sugar, oxygen, and water into something else”, and Cradle’s technology allows scientists to conduct this process more efficiently.
The startup is tapping into the burgeoning synthetic biology industry, a field where “people use microbes to make everything from materials to milk,” van Grieken told Insider.
The current success rate for these experiments is around 1%, and van Grieken hopes their technology will “dramatically reduce the cost of engineering these proteins.” In turn, research and development teams can successfully program proteins so that products can enter the market more quickly.
Its use cases span pharmaceutical research, wherein antibodies in medicine can be sequenced to last for longer in the body, to making synthetic milk, which produces less greenhouse gasses than cows’ milk.
The startup makes its money by selling and licensing its software product to R&D departments of biotech companies, across chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and alternative food. It also gives its software to academic institutions, as it regularly works with academics.
Amid a shaky economic downturn, van Grieken found that having a strong founding team — including Uber’s first employee and a host of experienced biologists — helped with the fundraise. Investor appetite for generative AI and biotech has also remained stable, which was a boon, van Grieken added.
The round was co-led by London-based venture capital firms Index Ventures, which was an early backer of Figma and Revolut, and Kindred Capital, a backer of Paddle and femtech Gaia. Additional participation came from angel investors Feike Sijbesma, and Emily Leproust, founder of Twist Bioscience.
With the fresh funds, Cradle will expand its team and labs, so that it can train more of its machine-learning models on proteins. It also aims to develop its UX and hopes to open up the platform to more partners.
Check out the 16-slide deck used to raise the fresh funds.
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