#8.

LifeMine Therapeutics just raised $55M in a monster Series A. Think: mining fungi’s microbe genomes to find new gene clusters, new products, new therapeutics. The round was led by WuXi Healthcare Ventures with an investor syndicate comprised of Foresite Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Arch Ventures, Boyu Capital, Blue Pool Capital, MRL Ventures Fund, and Alexandria Venture Investments. LifeMine is the first company to massively scale the genomic discovery of powerful new drugs from eukaryotic microbes by combining genomics with artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. The company has hacked a code of biologic function hidden in biosynthetic genes that enables the rapid discovery of drugs for previously untargetable disease drivers.

“My life’s passion has been to discover new treatments that address formidable challenges holding back modern medicine and for major, complex diseases,” said Gregory Verdine, co-founder and CEO. “The fungal biosphere is full of answers to these outstanding questions in the form of powerful, bioactive small molecules that engage human targets not previously targeted by conventional drugs. Despite their promise, these fundamentally innovative medicines proved difficult and time-consuming to discover by traditional means, leaving the industry in search of a technological solution.”