ExcepGen is a genetic medicine startup that recently emerged from stealth after the successful completion of its newest funding round. The most recent $4 million round – which brought the company’s total seed funding to $14 million – was led by RA Capital Management and backed by Gravity Fund, Apollo Projects (Sam Altman), and other premier investors.
ExcepGen has been quietly advancing its groundbreaking technology for making nucleic acid therapeutics much more powerful. And it works by encoding a specialized “shield” protein alongside the main nucleic acid cargo, which improves how cells react to the foreign DNA or RNA and prevents negative cell signaling. By this mechanism, ExcepGen’s technology could massively expand the reach of both DNA-based and RNA-based genetic medicines by enhancing their effectiveness and tolerability.
The newly secured funding round will play a pivotal role in accelerating ExcepGen’s research and development efforts, as well as advancing its collaborations with other companies.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are excited to support the potential of ExcepGen’s novel platform to enhance nucleic acid therapeutics across a broad range of indications.”
— Cosmas Giallourakis, Venture Partner at RA Capital Management
“Our mission at ExcepGen is to unlock nucleic acid medicines. This funding validates our aim to make RNA and DNA-based drugs a cornerstone of therapeutics. We are excited to use this new funding to prove out the value of our technology in different therapeutic spaces.”
— Thomas Folliard, CEO and co-founder at ExcepGen
“We couldn’t be more excited about supporting the ExcepGen team. Engineering cellular response to mRNA vaccines and therapeutics represents a significant leap forward in the development of mRNA technology and, we believe, ultimately allows mRNA technology to reach its full potential. It’s easy to get excited about ExcepGen from a technology and investment standpoint, but we’re most excited about what this technology potentially means in terms of patient outcomes.”
— Seth DeGroot, a partner at Gravity Fund
