Holobiome announced it closed an oversubscribed Seed round of $9M. The funding round was led by iSelect Fund, with major participation from Corundum Systems Biology, Satori Neuro, SkyRiver Ventures, Pace Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and Astanor. The company’s initial success with substantial non-dilutive funding laid the groundwork for this institutional round.
Holobiome is creating the world’s most comprehensive collection of human gut bacteria (it’s Microbiome Vault) and performing target-directed screening of this collection to map how the microbiome influences health. And the large datasets generated by these screens are used to inform development of novel consumer products and drugs.
Holobiome’s initial focus is on mapping the gut-brain axis and its lead program is a next-generation probiotic targeting biology relevant for depression. With its partnership model, Holobiome is advancing other programs with major consumer, food, and pharmaceutical partners, in areas including stress and pain.
As part of the funding round, Dr. Joan LaRovere (Operating Partner of iSelect and Associate Chief Medical Officer for Transformation at Boston Children’s Hospital) will join Dr. Iain Chessell, Global Head of Neuroscience of AstraZeneca, and Dr. Strandwitz on Holobiome’s board of directors. The new funding round will enable Holobiome to advance its lead program in depression into human testing, expand its platform, and build out expansive analytical pipelines coupled with real-world datasets.
KEY QUOTES:
“Over the past two decades, we have come to appreciate that our microbiome – the trillions of microbes that live on and in us, most of which reside in the gut – is essential for many aspects of our well-being. This is obvious in hindsight, as this complex and beautiful microbial ecosystem has evolved alongside humans for millennia, enabling each of us to become a superorganism, a Holobiont.”
“However, we have also learned that our gut microbiome can be destroyed, through poor diet, hyper sanitation, antibiotic use, and infection. This disruption has recently been tied to nearly all aspects of our health, ranging from metabolic disease to neuropsychiatric disorders. This gives hope – fixing the gut microbiome has the potential to improve the daily lives of millions of people, and could even be a cure for some of humanity’s most tragic diseases.”
“But there is a major problem in translating the science of the gut microbiome into potential solutions – we cannot currently replenish nor change our microbiome with precision. Of the many thousand bacterial species and strains that we can ‘see’ in the human gut through genome sequencing, most have never even been grown in the laboratory, and only a small portion can be purchased in products or found in food. This means if you are missing important gut microbes, it’s nearly impossible to add them to your gut microbiome. This also prevents testing basic hypotheses or generating datasets that enable action – such as how your gut microbiome will respond to specific foods, and how you can harness that knowledge to improve health and prevent disease.”
“This is the exact problem Holobiome seeks to fix through our platform – we want to help build a future where having your optimal gut microbiome is by choice, not chance.”
-Dr. Philip Strandwitz, CEO and co-founder of Holobiome
“Like many others, we have been closely observing the field of the microbiome. The science is undeniable, but it hasn’t yet been translated into meaningful solutions. We believe Holobiome’s microbiology-first platform is the key to unlocking this potential, opening up broad opportunities for both food applications and pharmaceuticals.”
-Craig Herron, Managing Director of iSelect Fund
