附近上门

附近上门 News typically covers larger funding rounds, however we think these startups are worth highlighting for their interesting approaches despite their smaller raises.

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Manifold Bio

Testing proteins is one way to see how well a drug candidate will work in humans. Boston-based , a spinoff from 鈥檚 lab at , is focused on increasing the number of tests that can be performed on protein therapeutics.

鈥淲e want to predict what a drug is going to do, and we can get the best data during animal trials before the bottleneck happens when it moves to human trials,鈥� CEO Gleb Kuznetsov, Ph.D., told 附近上门 News.

The startup raised a $5.4 million seed investment round led by and joined by existing investors , and . The investment will enable the company to expand the team, accelerate the development of a proprietary protein quantitation platform and initiate partnerships with pharmaceutical companies.

Manifold Bio is not focusing yet on certain diseases, and Kuznetsov said his vision is for Manifold to be making its own therapeutics.

In addition, there are a lot of opportunities with proteins because they can be programmed to do specific tasks with the right tools, he said. For example, the proteins could be programmed to go into a cancerous tumor, but not into healthy tissue, or go into the brain, but not another area.

鈥淲hen you are making something relevant to treating a disease, it is a big bet you are making,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e want to measure more proteins to help them do that, and pharma companies are eager for a solution and are very interested in what we are doing.鈥�

Writer.com

Company marketing teams spend a lot of time creating their brands, and makes sure that language, terminology and messaging are consistently communicated to anyone who writes content for the company.

鈥淲e think of it as a content design system where marketing teams can take control of their messaging and brand by centralizing all of their guidelines,鈥� said , Writer.com co-founder and CEO, in an interview.

The startup, which from in August, raised a $5.2 million seed round to develop its artificial intelligence platform so that companies can analyze and correct their written language.

The investment was led by , , and . It will be used to build on the product and invest in development, Habib said.

Writer.com works with customers across a broad range of industries from real estate to insurance to retail.

鈥淲e are narrowing in on what would be a great target buyer for our product, but with customers in all different industries, it demonstrates the need for a product like this, especially with more people working remotely,鈥� she added.

Infinite Looks

I鈥檇 like to give an honorable mention this week to luxury hair care brand , developed by New York-based . The 1-year-old startup did not disclose its funding amount, but I spoke to founder , who heads up several brands, about the seed financing that was backed by and .

鈥淭hey saw the value in what we were doing and wanted to lend support,鈥� Beasley said. 鈥淲ith their R&D backgrounds, we will work together to ensure we are providing the best products to the women we serve.鈥�

The Sunday II Sunday line sells exclusively on its website and was developed to meet the typical hair care needs of the active Black community, where around 40 percent of Black women avoid exercising because of their hair, he added. It includes hair care products to remove sweat, buildup and environmental damages so women can wash less frequently, hence the 鈥淪unday II Sunday鈥� brand name, Beasley added.

The funds will be used to scale the reach of the Sunday II Sunday product line for those with textured hair, as well as expand the product line offering.

Photo courtesy of Sunday II Sunday
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