Ashwin Nandakumar and Ashwin Jainarayanan were pursuing PhDs in adjacent departments at Oxford, but they did not know each other. Nandakumar, who was studying oncology, one day came across a curious set of prostate cancer data that he needed help sequencing.
“I contacted some friends asking for help analyzing this data,” said Nandakumar. “They said, ‘There’s another guy by the name Ashwin, you should connect with him.'”
The two Ashwins hit it off instantly, and soon after meeting, they began working in the lab of Jainarayanan’s academic advisor, Michael Dustin, professor of molecular immunology.
When Nandakumar and Jainarayanan were preparing to graduate, they initially planned to get jobs in big pharmaceutical companies. But they were also fascinated by Dustin’s research. “Mike discovered a whole new feature of the immune system that people didn’t know existed,” Nandakumar said.
Nandakumar and Jainarayanan decided to explore the idea of turning this research into a company. They were introduced to Y-Combinator’s biological partner, Surbhi Sarna, and she convinced both Ashwins to sign up to the famous accelerator.
“That conversation changed our lives,” Nandakumar said. “We decided we’re not going to join Big Pharma. We’re going to create our own Big Pharma.”
Nandakumar, Jainarayanan and Dustin formed Granza Bio, a biotechnology startup working on a new approach to delivering immunotherapy and other “attack particles” to various parts of the body. Both Ashwins entered the YC Winter 24 batch.
Granza’s approach has attracted a lot of interest from investors. “Our plan initially was to raise $2.5 million to carry out crucial experiments,” Nandakumar said. “We started raising funds [a] Wednesday and reach that goal on Friday.”
As investors lined up to invest in Granza, the two Ashwins decided to raise a larger round that would allow them to expand biotechnology research beyond the initial experimentation phase.
On Wednesday, Granaza Bio announced that it raised a $714 million seed round led by Felicis and Refactorwith the participation of Y Combinator.
Granza Bio fits perfectly with Felicis’ thesis: that the body’s own immune system could be activated to treat cancer and other autoimmune diseases,Tobi Coker, partner at Felicis, told TechCrunch. “The research from Professor Dustin’s lab is completely new,” said Coker, adding that Granza’s approach to delivering therapies into organ systems could have broad applications in oncology and treating autoimmune diseases.
Although Felicis is best known as a company that made initial bets on technology companies Like Notion, Canva, Adyen, Cruise, Flexport and Shopify, the 18-year-old venture group is no stranger to the world of biotech investing. About 10% to 15% of the company’s capital is invested in biology-focused startups, Coker said. Felicis’ best-known life sciences companies include Gingko Bioworks and Recursion Pharmaceuticals, now publicly traded.
“I think we have a good eye for new technology paradigms and potential platform companies,” Coker said. (In biotechnology, platform companies focus on creating underlying tools that can be used to develop numerous therapies.)
Felicis and other Granza Bio investors are betting that the startup’s therapeutic payload delivery mechanism could eventually help develop a series of new medicines.
