It’s fall and there’s a lot going on — the school 12 months is in full swing, the air is cool, and you may buy anything with pumpkin in it.
There were also a lot of interesting startups raising money in September. If you missed any, we have a list here .
Blackberries without seeds
Almost everyone likes some fruit — but let’s be honest, they’d be higher without the seeds.
Enter Plants in pairsgene-editing company attempting to improve plant breeding for specialty and commodity crops. The Durham, North Carolina-based startup closed a $40 million Series C round led by Deerfield Management this month, along with other investors similar to Bayer Jumpsand the giant of agroscience Corteva Agriscience.
The company will use the latest money injection to expand its revolutionary Pairwise product range, which incorporates seedless berries and seedless cherries, similar to a latest seedless blackberry variety, announced in June.
But it’s not only that Pairwise is developing seedless fruit. Its gene-editing technology is also allowing crops to be more resilient and adaptive—needed as the effects of climate change begin to accentuate.
As a part of the investment, Corteva and Pairwise have entered into a five-year three way partnership aimed at accelerating the pace of development of gene-editing technologies.
As the world changes, our food must sustain.
Better diagnoses
When a biopsy is vital, you may expect the diagnosis to be clear and accurate.
The truth is, nonetheless, that shortage of pathologists and 85% of pathology biopsies are still on glass slides — meaning the ability to share information and opinions is limited.
A startup offering an image sharing platform Path Presenter froze $7.5 million under the chairmanship Before Organic to try to vary that. The Montville, N.J.-based company has developed an enterprise pathology workflow solution to digitize those slides and create the ability to democratize access to the world’s pathology knowledge. The platform also leverages latest artificial intelligence algorithms and underlying models to enhance patient outcomes.
The platform already has a rapidly growing digital pathology community of over 50,000 users in 172 countries.
No one wants to listen to a cancer diagnosis, but it is best if that diagnosis is correct so a proper treatment plan may be developed.
Artificial Intelligence for Pets
Pets often appear in the news — for a number of reasons.
We even wrote recently about the decline in funding for pet startups.
Well, this month, a pet startup got funding because Write it down — AI platform for veterinarians — has raised $8.2 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Startups that help doctors take notes and eliminate the have to spend hours writing medical records are nothing latest for doctors who treat patients, but this is the first such initiative we have heard about in the context of veterinarians.
The Ontario-based startup desires to alleviate the burnout crisis facing the veterinary career. In fact, 86% of veterinarians report high levels of stressOne reason is the have to keep accurate and complete medical records, though some veterinarians see as much as 30 patients a day.
Everyone wants what’s best for their pets — and that definitely includes vets who aren’t overworked and stressed.
Chip and cell
What do microchips and cells have in common? Maybe not much, but one can tell us more about the other.
At least that is the way it is CytoTronics is trying to seek out out. The Boston-based startup, which just raised $13.5 million in Series Seed 2 funding, is led by Anzu Partners AND Life Capitalcreates a chip platform for cell biology discoveries.
The company plans to make use of the fresh money to speed up its semiconductor-living cell interface for cell biology applications, Pixel. The platform enables high-resolution, real-time assessment of living cell characteristics—giving researchers a deeper, higher understanding of how chemical or genetic variations affect cell function.
Pixel enables scientists to leverage electrochemical and electrophysiological capabilities to gather high-level data that may be used for drug development and other pharmaceutical needs.
Technological innovations have helped us higher understand our bodies for centuries. Now, chips help us understand the smallest a part of them.
Reversible power plants
There are many startups on the market dealing with carbon dioxide emissions, so it’s hard to face out from them.
However, ReverenceThe company’s technology appears to make this possible — and the company has raised $62 million in Series A funding led by Energy Impact Partners this month.
The German-based startup goals to build reversible, carbon-negative power plants. The company’s fuel-cell plants can double the electricity output of conventional gas engines, while also operating reversibly to supply and store renewable natural gas or green hydrogen in times of electricity surplus.
Finally, Reverion plants also can capture CO₂ produced during electricity generation, making the biogas energy process carbon negative.
The company plans to make use of the latest funds to start production of the power plant and fulfill pre-orders from customers value greater than $100 million — a poor start.