RyboDyn, a biotechnology company focused on decoding the dark proteome to uncover new cancer targets, announced the initial close of a $10 million seed financing round.
The company said the funding will support its transition from foundational discovery to scaled platform execution, while advancing early-stage programs toward IND-enabling studies.
Based in San Diego, RyboDyn is developing an AI-powered sequencing and discovery platform to identify previously hidden biological targets that traditional methods miss. The company’s approach centers on uncovering “cryptic” proteins derived from non-canonical RNA, which could enable new classes of antibody therapeutics for cancer and other diseases with high unmet medical need.
At the core of the platform is RyboCypher, which combines deep sequencing of non-canonical RNA with proteomic detection to identify disease-specific, druggable targets directly from patient tumors. These data feed into CypherAtlas, a proprietary database that now includes information from approximately 1,000 patient tumor samples across 10 oncology indications.
RyboDyn said its platform has expanded the discovery of novel RNA species to more than 3 million and identified over 80,000 cryptic peptides, including around 15,000 that are cancer-specific. Many of these targets are believed to play functional roles in cancer biology and may be suitable for therapeutic development, particularly in immunotherapy applications.
The company is positioning its approach as a way to overcome a growing bottleneck in oncology drug development, where target discovery has lagged behind advances in AI-driven drug design. By focusing on previously unexplored regions of the genome, RyboDyn aims to unlock a new landscape of targets that are not yet crowded by existing therapies.
RyboDyn has already demonstrated proof-of-concept in vitro, including antibody-drug conjugate-mediated killing of tumor cells via cryptic protein targets. The company plans to continue advancing these discoveries into clinical development while also collaborating with pharmaceutical partners.
The company was founded by Imad Ajjawi and Corey Dambacher and is backed by a group of global investors, including Genedant, SeaX Ventures, SOSV, Swell VC, Massive Tech Ventures, and P2V.
KEY QUOTES:
“We set out to find the proteins that cancer hides behind, and we’re now uncovering them at scale. RyboCypher and CypherAtlas provide a continuously expanding map of that hidden biology. We’re actively translating these discoveries into first-in-class therapies, both internally and with leading pharmaceutical partners.”
Imad Ajjawi, PhD, MBA, CEO And Co-founder Of RyboDyn
“It’s clear that the molecules we’re finding and describing for the first time represent a vast opportunity to tackle some of the most aggressive cancers. In a cohort of HER2-negative breast cancer patients, we identified a novel target present in approximately 45% of the tumors we analyzed. Some of these are triple-negative patients with limited treatment options. That’s the value proposition of our approach; the integration of RyboCypher with CypherAtlas allows us to identify entirely new, actionable targets.”
Corey Dambacher, PhD, President And Co-founder Of RyboDyn
“RyboDyn is tackling one of the most underexplored frontiers in cancer biology. Their ability to systematically discover and validate targets from the dark proteome at this scale is highly differentiated. This new therapeutic landscape represents a fundamental shift in how cancer is targeted and RyboDyn is pioneering this shift.”
Eric Woersching, Managing Partner At Massive Tech Ventures
