Humboldt Fund

Deciduous Therapeutics is an aging therapeutics company developing a novel class of immune-modulatory therapies that clear senescent cells and promote a healthy lifespan. Deciduous is led by Anil Bhushan, a professor at UCSF, and Robin Mansukhani, a five-time biotech founder.

Endpoint Health is a precision immunology company that is breaking the efficacy barrier of traditional pharma's “one-size-fits-all” drug development strategy by developing precision therapies with outsized efficacy potential in autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. They’re accomplishing this by leveraging OMNAI, their proprietary AI-powered patient discovery platform, to identify and match high-potential therapies to the patients most likely to respond.

Ansa Biotechnologies is manufactured via a chemical method that has remained essentially unchanged for 35 years and has approached a plateau. Ansa Biotechnologies is developing a novel DNA synthesis technology based on enzymes that will be more fast, accurate, and clean than existing methods. The technique promises to dramatically accelerate innovation in biological research and engineering.

Finless Foods provides cellular-agriculture technologies to create accessible plant-based and cell-cultured seafood alternatives. Finless Foods offers a variety of food choices that cater to different tastes and dietary requirements. They provide consumers with responsibly produced food items to help them expand their daily eating habits while also contributing to a more sustainable future and promoting better ocean health.

HAYA Therapeutics is a developer of RNA-based therapeutics created to treat heart failure. The company's therapeutics utilizes biopharmaceutical therapy to target a heart specific regulator of fibrosis, the long noncoding RNA, enabling physicians to to block myocardial fibrosis and treat heart failure.

Cellino is building a scalable, automated biomanufacturing system for potentially curative personalized cell therapies. Cellino’s vision is to enable healthier lives worldwide with personalized treatments derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can serve as the basis for therapies for a host of chronic degenerative diseases, including vision loss and Parkinson's disease.

Ansa Biotechnologies is manufactured via a chemical method that has remained essentially unchanged for 35 years and has approached a plateau. Ansa Biotechnologies is developing a novel DNA synthesis technology based on enzymes that will be more fast, accurate, and clean than existing methods. The technique promises to dramatically accelerate innovation in biological research and engineering.

Minus is a beanless coffee company which produces coffee.

Debut is an unconventional innovation company that integrates breakthrough biotechnology and brand creation to build businesses that represent the next generation of sustainable wellness. With proprietary screening, testing, and cell-free biomanufacturing technology, we unlock novel activities to power global personal care and health brands. Their mission is to set a new standard for big business through a dynamic intrapreneurial model and to create purposeful brands that push humanity forward. The company creates sustainable novel ingredients, products, and brands that will accelerate the transformation of the industry.

Mission Barns is making the juicy, savory meats they all love in a sustainable, more efficient way. At Mission Barns, they are cultivating animal cells to sustainably grow meat without the negative impacts of intensive animal agriculture. They start with a handful of cells from select animals, grow them in a nutrient-rich environment, and harvest delicious, savory meat. Working at the convergence of biotech and food science, they’re on the path to creating a more sensible food system for the world.

Meatable is a food production company that produces guilt-free meat. Meatable is a company that creates manufactured meat using stem cell technology. By employing pluripotent stem cells, which have the potential to transform any type of cell from muscle to fat without serum, the company's method eliminates the need to remove any tissue from an animal, allowing consumers to have sustainable food.

Cellino is building a scalable, automated biomanufacturing system for potentially curative personalized cell therapies. Cellino’s vision is to enable healthier lives worldwide with personalized treatments derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which can serve as the basis for therapies for a host of chronic degenerative diseases, including vision loss and Parkinson's disease.

Concerto Biosciences rebuilds microbial communities in, on, and around us to heal our bodies and our planet. Products that rebuild microbial communities do not yet exist because no one can map the vast inter-species interaction networks responsible for community behavior. Concerto’s cofounders therefore invented the first-ever ultra-high-throughput platform to experimentally measure millions of microbial interactions. Concerto maps interaction networks that reveal a new class of products called “ensembles”—combinations of microbes that work in concert to shepherd damaged microbial communities to health. The opportunities are enormous: Concerto will become the premier inventor of ensembles across medicine and agriculture, reinventing humanity’s relationship with microbes.

CellX is creating the world's first mushroom protein from morel mycelium fermentation. Our ingredient and product solutions can be applied to savory snacks, protein powders, and meat alternatives. We are also licensing existing IPs to help accelerate the commercialization of cultivated meat. Our technology offerings include suspension cell lines and serum-free media that have achieved 30M/ml cell density and <$5/L media cost, tested at the 2,000L scale.

MycoWorks is a biotech company that provides non-plastic and non-animal materials to the market. Their mycelium products provide natural alternatives to plastic foams, textiles, and leather. Their products are made from bio-materials using fungal mycelium to create energy-efficient and biodegradable alternatives to plastic foams, synthetic textiles, engineered woods, and leather for use in aerospace, automobiles, apparel, and architectural interiors.

Metagenomi uses metagenomics and machine learning to discover novel genome editing systems for therapeutics development. The company's metagenomics-powered discovery platform and analytical expertise reveal novel cellular machinery sourced from otherwise unknown organisms. Metagenomi forges these naturally evolved systems into powerful gene editing systems that are ultra-small, extremely efficient, highly specific, and have a decreased risk of the immune response. Metagenomi's goal is to revolutionize gene editing for the benefit of patients around the world. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Emeryville, California.

Biodesigned proteins for beauty, wellness and beyond.

Ansa Biotechnologies is manufactured via a chemical method that has remained essentially unchanged for 35 years and has approached a plateau. Ansa Biotechnologies is developing a novel DNA synthesis technology based on enzymes that will be more fast, accurate, and clean than existing methods. The technique promises to dramatically accelerate innovation in biological research and engineering.

Metagenomi uses metagenomics and machine learning to discover novel genome editing systems for therapeutics development. The company's metagenomics-powered discovery platform and analytical expertise reveal novel cellular machinery sourced from otherwise unknown organisms. Metagenomi forges these naturally evolved systems into powerful gene editing systems that are ultra-small, extremely efficient, highly specific, and have a decreased risk of the immune response. Metagenomi's goal is to revolutionize gene editing for the benefit of patients around the world. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Emeryville, California.

CollegeVine is a platform for deploying AI Agents to replace administrative work throughout the higher education sector and to save time and money for Universities (Colleges) globally. The higher education sector is projecting an annual deficit of $100B within 5 years. We believe AI Agents will dramatically increase efficiency, reduce administrative costs, and transform the student experience to make higher education sustainable for the next century. We deploy safe AI Agents to drive real outcomes across campus. Over 100 universities use CollegeVine AI Agents to dramatically change how their administrative staff does work.