15 August 2022 - - US-based life sciences company Monod Bio has raised a USD 25m seed financing round, the company said.

The round was led by Matrix Capital, with participation from the Global Health Investment Corp., Cercano Management, The Washington Research Foundation, Boom Capital Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, and Pack Ventures.

Monod is using state-of-the-art computational protein design to develop a new class of modular biosensors that emit a bioluminescent signal when the sensor recognizes its target. Biosensors are instruments that detect the presence of specific molecules, even at trace concentrations.

The sensors are built from de novo engineered proteins developed using software from the Institute of Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

The company's biosensor platform unites binding, transduction, and amplification in a single step, enabling detection of a wide range of target molecules such as biomarkers, viruses and toxins.

Monod has to date created biosensors that recognize the spike protein on the COVID-19 virus, cancer-receptors, and a molecule (cardiac troponin), which is released by the body after a heart attack, which was published in Nature.

More recently, this technology was applied to the detection of COVID-19 neutralizing antibodies in vaccinated patients, Nature biotechnology.

The new funding will be used to advance Monod's LucCage platform for the rapid development of one-step biosensors and reporter proteins to detect targets for applications in biotechnology and medicine.

Monod's proprietary LucCage platform combines breakthrough technologies across engineering, biology, and machine learning to create custom biosensors from scratch with unrivaled consistency and very low costs.

The company plans to double the size of its research and engineering teams in the coming 18 months.

Monod was founded in November 2021 from technology developed at David Baker's lab at the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design.

The company was co-founded by Daniel-Adriano Silva, Ph.D., CEO, Alfredo Quijano Rubio, Ph.D, chief scientific officer, David Shoultz, Ph.D., M.B.A., chief operating officer, and David Baker, Scientific Advisor.

Monod Bio is a pioneer company in the design of custom de novo protein-based biosensors that emit light when they recognize its target.

Monod Bio's biosensor platform technology uses computational protein engineering to create highly modular biosensing nanoswitches that enable rapid, sensitive, and cost-effective analytical assays.

The company is founded on technology developed in David Baker's group at the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design.

Monod has been published in several peer-reviewed journals including Nature and Nature biotechnology, shaping our understanding of scalable digital healthcare solutions. Monod Bio is based in Seattle, Washington.