April 2026

Table of Contents:

• Curve Biosciences 🧑
• Diffuse Bio ⚡
• Fauna Bio 💰
• Genesis Molecular AI 🗞 🎙 👤
• Illuminant Surgical 🎙 🗞
• ImmuneBridge 💰 🧑 🔎
• Kascaid 💰
• Mithradote Bio 📊
• Montara Therapeutics 📊
• Nextnet 📈 📊
• Parallel Health 📈 🎙
• Progenic Genomics 📈 📊 🔎
• Pumpkinseed Bio 🎙
• PyrAmes 🏆
• Ridge Bio 🎙 📆 📆
• TerraNova Bioremediation 📈
• TwoStep Therapeutics 🧑 👤 👤
• Velocity Bio 📔
• Xylo Bio 🎙 🚚

Curve Biosciences [A, Monitoring]

🧑‍🦱 Hired Amit Singal, M.D., as CMO. Dr. Singal is the Chief of Hepatology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and will lead clinical strategy and development as the company advances its initial pipeline focused on transforming care for patients with chronic liver diseases.

Diffuse Bio [Seed, AI for de novo Protein Design]

⚡ Launched RamaX Opt, an ultra-fast affinity maturation and sequence optimization workflow on the RamaX platform. New case study demonstrates 4–50x affinity improvements across 4 parental CD3 binders in ~1 week. Combined with DiffuseSandbox for AI-driven binder design and RamaX for screening, the full path from target to optimized lead candidate now takes weeks, not months. Researchers can get started via their intake form or reach out at [email protected].

Fauna Bio [Seed, Therapeutics]

💰 In their collaboration with Lilly, identified a target to treat obesity by using insights from hibernating mammals that naturally regulate body weight and metabolism. Fauna will receive a milestone payment from achieving the target identification

Genesis Molecular AI [B, AI + Tx]

🗞️ CEO and founder Evan Feinberg was featured in NYSE's 2026 Cure(ious) series, which spotlights life science and healthcare leaders reflecting on their careers and the future of health.

🎙️ CTO Sergey Edunov will speak on the panel "Tech Perspectives & The Full Potential of AI" at the Biocom Converge Summit (April 23 at the Forum in South San Francisco).

👤 HIRING: Looking for ML Research Scientists, CADD Scientists, Chief of Staff to the CEO, and many more! See all open roles at genesis.ml/careers.

Illuminant Surgical [Seed, MedTech]

🎙 Co-CEO James presented at GTC in March

🗞️ Co-CEO Eldrick Millares was featured in LSI's magazine and appeared on a panel at LSI USA

ImmuneBridge [Seed, Cell Therapy MFG Platform + Tx]

💰 Raised $7.7M Series Seed 2 led by NFX with participation from M Ventures, Insight Partners, One Way Ventures, Healthspan, LongGame, T.Rx Capital, and Sand Hill Angels

🧑‍🦱 Announced Stanford Bioengineering PhD grad Nina Horowitz as CEO and promoted biomanufacturing expert Rui Tostoes, PhD to CTO

🔎 Opened its cell platform to new partners interested in low-cost, high-quality cell therapy manufacturing

Kascaid [Pre-seed, Dx]

💰 Kicked off their Seed raise this week!

Mithradote Bio [Seed, Therapeutics]

📊 Conducted a pre-IND meeting with the FDA and is preparing to fund program development through a Series A financing round or strategic partnerships

Montara Therapeutics [Seed, Neuro Tx]

📊 Submitted pre-IND briefing book and are on track for IND submission in Q4 and FIH studies in Q1 2027

Nextnet [Seed, Research Software]

📈 Nextnet is enabling a range of use cases across life sciences customers through its "Ontology-as-a-Product" (OaaP) and "Ontology-as-a-Service" (OaaS) offerings.

📊 Seeing strong traction in applications like key opinion leader (KOL) discovery for life sciences customers.

Parallel Health [Seed, Consumer Health]

📈 Now in-network with United Healthcare in California, adding to existing Aetna and Cigna coverage for personalized Microbiome Dermatology services

🎙 Selected as finalist at HumanX, the largest AI conference in the world, presenting on Tuesday, April 7th in San Francisco

Progenic Genomics [Pre-seed, Reproductive Genomics]

📈 Tripled their revenue year-over-year

📊 Progress in developing their V2 product, calibrating against TopMed data with 100x more individual genomes than their previous data set

🔎 Seeking fertility clinics or testing labs interested in partnering — reach out to Founder Brad Gulko directly

Pumpkinseed Bio [Seed, Proteomics]

🎙 Presenting at SynBioBeta in San Jose on May 6 with a mainstage session alongside Sue Siegel (Illumina and the Engine), Mike Koeris (DARPA BTO Director), Lee Hood (the Buck Institute) and Susan Klaeger (Genentech). Will also host a breakout session that afternoon at the conference

PyrAmes [A, Commercial-stage Med Device]

🏆 Won the SCCM Pitch Award at the 2026 Critical Care Congress with a $10,000 prize for presenting breakthrough blood pressure measurement technology. CEO Xina Quan presented "Creating a New Standard of Care for Blood Pressure Measurement" featuring Boppli® and Bosimi® platforms at the Chicago innovation showcase.

Ridge Bio [Seed, Enzyme and Therapeutic Design]

🎙 CEO Weston Kightlinger was an invited speaker in two sessions at the American Chemical Society's ACS Spring 2026 Conference, sharing recent animal data on increasing therapeutic indices for antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)

📆 Weston will be speaking about Ridge Bio's experiment-informed AI platform in the "Rewriting Enzyme Performance: Next-Gen Platforms for AI-Driven Protein Screening" session at SynBio Beta May 6th, 2026 in San Jose

📆 Ridge Bio will be at the 2026 Biocom Converge Summit April 23, 2026 in South San Francisco discussing its ProTrigger and NativeLink technologies, building additional partnerships with top biotech organizations to build better bioconjugate therapeutics

TerraNova Bioremediation [Inception, Climate Tech]

📈 City partnerships secured with Watsonville and Santa Cruz to provide PUR waste for R&D efforts

TwoStep Therapeutics [Seed, Therapeutics]

🧑‍🦱 Nicolas Salem, PhD, joins TwoStep as VP, Radiopharmaceutical Clinical Development

👤 HIRING: Opened a new job posting for Director/Head of CMC

👤 HIRING: Opened a new job posting for Chief Medical Officer

Velocity Bio [Pre-seed, Tx]

📔 Co-founders published tour-de-force bioRxiv preprint using HT-MEK technology to generate new insights into SHP2 phosphatase, a key emerging oncology target. Study led by Albert Lee in collaboration with Fordyce and Herschlag labs at Stanford and the Blacklow group at Harvard Medical School, demonstrating platform validation.

Xylo Bio [Seed, Neuro Tx]

🎙 VP of Business Development Samantha Rector participated in panels at Octane Neurotech Forum and Asilomar of the Brain and Mind, focusing on investor-founder relationships and neuroethics

🚚 CSO Dr. Sam Banister traveling to Sydney labs in late April to work with R&D team on their lead program development