A four-year-old London startup backed by Peter Thiel has raised a $55 million Series B round as it sets about “fixing the broken clinical trial industry.” The announcement comes as artificial intelligence is shaping up to revolutionize drug discovery and development, in turn spurring demand for a streamlined clinical trial process to help get new…
Category: Biotech & Health
AI, ai models, Biotech & Health, ChatGPT, Global IT News, Global Security News, human longevity, In Brief, openai, TC
OpenAI is trying to extend human life, with help from a longevity startup
OpenAI says it trained a new AI model called GPT-4b micro with Retro Biosciences, a longevity science startup trying to extend the human lifespan by 10 years, according to the MIT Technology Review. Retro, which is backed by Sam Altman, has been working with OpenAI for roughly a year on this research, according to the…
Biotech & Health, Fundraising, Future Ventures, Global IT News, Global Security News, Medical Devices, NeuroBionics
This MIT spinout wants to spool hair-thin fibers into patients’ brains
You can’t start a company without a healthy dose of daring, and that’s certainly the case with NeuroBionics. The MIT-spinout thinks it could one day improve the lives of millions of people who live with neurological conditions like depression, epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Famed investor Steve Jurvetson of Future Ventures said that if everything goes…
Biotech & Health, emerson collective, forerunner, Fundraising, Global IT News, Global Security News, Teal Health, women's health
Teal Health raises $10M to create at-home cervical cancer screenings
The process of getting screened for cervical cancer is quite intimidating. It’s the once-a-year, sometimes life-changing treatment, that involves the bright lights of a doctor’s office and an uncomfortable insertion that always seems to last too long. It’s no wonder why Kara Egan and Dr. Avnesh Thakor saw the potential to make this process more…
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Colossal Biosciences raises $200M at $10.2B valuation to bring back woolly mammoths
Colossal Biosciences wants to bring back the woolly mammoth and has raised $200 million at a $10.2 billion valuation to do it. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a ‘GPT for biology’
A fledgling French AI startup has raised $41 million to develop a foundational AI model for biology. Just as OpenAI’s ChatGPT has taken the world by storm for a super-smart generative AI tool capable of natural language conversation in text form, Bioptimus is taking that concept but training its model specifically for downstream biological applications…
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More money comes to AI healthcare: Qventus nabs $105M at a $400M+ valuation
Healthcare is proving to be one of the more lucrative industries when it comes to building AI solutions to speed up how work is carried out across clinical, research and administrative operations. Today comes one of the latest examples of how that is playing out in terms of venture funding. Qventus, a startup that builds…
Biotech & Health, Fundraising, Global IT News, Global Security News, Health, Healthcare
UK in-home healthcare provider Cera raises $150M to expand its AI platform
Around the world, public healthcare systems have struggled to reset post-pandemic, and in particular, the increasingly aged populations in Western countries are putting pressure on services, not least in the UK where ‘NHS in crisis’ is a regular headline in the media. As a result, private companies, many powered with technology, see a gap in…
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These startups are making smarter canes for people with visual impairments
The white cane for the 21st century. While many tech companies have increasingly worked to make technology more accessible for the blind and visually impaired, canes haven’t benefitted much from these advances. London-born WeWalk takes a more traditional approach to the white cane. Beyond the bulkier handle, not much sets the company’s product apart visually…
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Hippocratic AI raises $141M for creating patient-facing AI agents
Hippocratic AI, a startup building AI solutions that can handle non-diagnostic patient-facing tasks, secured a massive $141 million Series B at a valuation of $1.64 billion led by Kleiner Perkins, the company announced Thursday. The funding comes nine months after Hippocratic AI raised a $53 million round from General Catalyst and Andreessen Horowitz and five…
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Innovaccer aims to become healthcare’s AI powerhouse with $275M Series F
Innovaccer has raised a $275M Series F from investors including B Capital Group, Banner Health, Danaher Ventures, Generation IM, Kaiser Permanente, and M12. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
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Biosphere zaps germs with UV light to make biomanufacturing cheaper
Using LEDs has the potential to bring down the cost of biomanufacturing, allowing such processes to make materials that previously would have been too expensive. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.
AI, Biotech & Health, clinical trials, Global IT News, Global Security News, Grove AI, seed capital, Startups
Grove cuts clinical trial enrollment time with AI
Tran Le was an engineering student at Stanford University when she tried to enroll in a clinical trial for her chronic condition. Although she identified several promising trials, she found the sign-up process daunting — she had to have extensive email exchanges with clinical sites and complete lengthy 20-page forms. All that paperwork was so…
a16z, Biotech & Health, General Catalyst, Global IT News, Global Security News, h1, M&A, Startups, venture-backed M&A
Healthcare analytics platform H1 has acquired Ribbon, backed by a16Z and General Catalyst
H1, a healthcare data analytics platform serving the pharmaceutical industry with data on over 10 million healthcare professionals, has acquired Ribbon, a startup that helps patients find doctors that are supported by their insurance. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The last time that Ribbon — founded in 2016 and a Y…
Biotech & Health, diabetes, Fundraising, Global IT News, Global Security News, siren socks, wearables
Siren secures strategic funding for its socks that detect diabetic foot ulcers
After studying burn victims and war veterans, entrepreneur Ran Ma hand-made a sock that contained sensors to detect foot ulcers. Now, her company, Siren, has secured $9.5 million, with an $8 million check from lead investor Mölnlycke Health Care to further the development and adoption of its diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) prevention product. It’s now…
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This pool cleaning company made a robot turtle to track water quality
Beatbot makes robotic pool cleaners. In fact, the company is showing off a new one with a docking station this week at CES 2025. What really caught our eye on the show floor, however, is RoboTurtle, because, well, it’s a robot that looks like a turtle. The turtle, sadly, seems to very much be in…
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Ultrahuman stakes a claim to luxury smart rings with trio of 18K gold and pt950 platinum bands
Smart ring maker Ultrahuman took the wraps off a trio of extra shiny high-tech trinkets at CES 2025 on Tuesday, adding a premium jewelry collection to its range of wellness wearables. It’s given the Ring line the brand name Rare, a neat verbal echo of the company’s mainstream smart ring, the Ring Air. The Indian…
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Fermata uses computer vision to detect diseases and pests in plants
When Valeria Kogan started her Ph.D. program in bioinformatics, the scientific field that uses computation and software to analyze biological data, in 2017, she imagined her career would always be within the fields of mathematics, medicine, or biology. But after the first AI boom in the late 2010s, she got an intriguing opportunity in a…
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Withings launches BPM Vision, a $130 home blood pressure monitor, at CES 2025
Withings has made a name for itself by making clinical grade health technologies accessible to consumer. This week at CES 2025, the firm revealed two new products that fit the description nicely, one hardware and one software. BPM Vision is the more notable. It’s a travel size home blood pressure monitor, complete with interchangeable arm…
accessibility, Biotech & Health, CES, Global IT News, Global Security News, Hardware, solidddvision
Soliddd is building smart glasses for people with macular degeneration
For the past several years, the halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center have been lousy with AR/VR/XR smart glasses. While the some of the biggest names in tech, like Apple and Google, have struggled to gain traction in the category, accessible tech remains relatively unexplored. There’s a lot of work to be done in…
Biotech & Health, CES, ces 2025, Global IT News, Global Security News, Hardware, omnia, withings
Withings’ Omnia is a full-size body-scanning health mirror
The Omnia is still very much in concept mode — a phenomenon popular in the automotive world that has since spilled over into consumer electronics. That is to say that Withings’ splashiest product of CES 2025 may never be a product. Among other things, a body-scanning smart mirror would likely be cost prohibitive for consumers.…
Biotech & Health, Global IT News, Global Security News, Hardware, Health, Healthtech, medtech, Startups, wearable devices, wearables
Proton’s device aims to help those with kidney disease, and cut heart failure risks
People with chronic kidney disease, or those at risk of heart failure, are greatly affected by potassium imbalances in the body. These can even be life-threatening. While wearable glucose monitors are now commonplace and have transformed the lives of diabetes patients, potassium monitoring is in its infancy as it’s hard to do. Now, startups are…
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Tetsuwan Scientific is making robotic AI scientists that can run experiments on their own
LLM models are already capable of diagnosing scientific outputs, but, until now, had “no physical agency to actually perform” experiments. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.