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    "id": 674,
    "name": "TAXA Biotechnologies",
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    "website": "http://www.taxa.com",
    "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    "long_description": "The TAXA platform has been specifically designed to enable anyone to perform metabolic engineering of plants without stepping into a lab. We provide access to protein engineering, DNA assembly, transient experiments and stable transformation as a service. The best thing is that anything \"Powered by TAXA\" is designed to be free from expensive regulatory approval, meaning the products are available for sale or distribution to consumers in the United States immediately after they are developed. For a detailed list of the experiments which can be run on our platform please see the Services page.\r\n\r\nOur vision is a world where bio-engineering is as easy and commonplace as mobile application development is today. Game-changing technologies, like genetic engineering, should not be the exclusive preserve of large corporations and a wealthy elite. Democratizing the tools of creation enables anyone, anywhere, to genetically engineer plants and will unleash a wave of creativity to power an environment where ultimately what we create is limited only by our imagination.  The TAXA platform is our next step in the realization of that dream\r\n\r\nWe are also the team behind the first synthetic biology crowdfunding project, raising $484k on Kickstarter to make real glowing plants: www.glowingplant.com",
    "one_liner": "We enable cheaper, faster, and better genetic engineering of plants.…",
    "team_size": 2,
    "industry": "Healthcare",
    "subindustry": "Healthcare -> Consumer Health and Wellness",
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    "tags": [
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    "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/taxa-biotechnologies",
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        "full_name": "Antony Evans",
        "title": "Founder/CEO",
        "founder_bio": "COO at Wild Earth.",
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        "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonyevans/",
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    "id": 28794,
    "name": "Ohmic Biosciences",
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    "website": "https://ohmicbiosciences.com/",
    "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    "long_description": "Pests and pathogens cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Existing technologies like agrochemicals are no longer working. Ohmic Biosciences uses protein engineering to design resistance genes for crops that are robust to pathogen evolution.",
    "one_liner": "Genetically engineering plants for disease resistance.",
    "team_size": 2,
    "industry": "Industrials",
    "subindustry": "Industrials -> Agriculture",
    "launched_at": 1689702500,
    "tags": [
      "Synthetic Biology",
      "Biotech",
      "Climate",
      "Agriculture",
      "Genetic Engineering"
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    "batch": "Summer 2023",
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    "year_founded": 2021,
    "city": "San Francisco",
    "country": "US",
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        "full_name": "PJ Steiner",
        "title": "Founder",
        "founder_bio": "I'm a protein engineer, synthetic biologist, and computer scientist. I studied computer science at MIT (SB/MEng) and then synthetic biology at Cambridge (PhD) and UCSD (postdoc). After two years as a scientist at Bolt Threads engineering yeast for protein production, I moved to the University of Colorado Boulder to work on a DARPA project using protein engineering to turn plants into chemical biosensors. My co-founder Matt and I founded Ohmic to make plants resistant to disease.",
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        "full_name": "Matthew Bedewitz",
        "title": "Founder",
        "founder_bio": "I'm a plant biochemist with experience in protein engineering, genetics and analytical chemistry. I studied Horticulture Science (BS), and then Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Biotechnology (PhD) at Michigan State where I characterized enzymes in tropane alkaloid production for nerve agent antidotes and stimulants (including cocaine). That work led me to a DARPA protein engineering project where I met my cofounder, PJ, and we decided to use our skills to tackle crop disease resistance.",
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        "title": "Ohmic Biosciences: Genetically engineering disease-resistant plants",
        "tagline": "We use protein engineering to create resistance traits for any disease in any plant.",
        "body": "**TL;DR:** Ohmic Biosciences genetically engineers plants to make them resistant to disease. Our first product is a soybean resistant to a parasite that causes over $1.5B of yearly damage in the US alone.\n\n**The Problem**\n\nPlant diseases cost the world more than $200B every year. Climate change and trade globalization are accelerating the problem, but existing solutions are failing. Today, crop diseases are controlled in two ways:\n\nAgrochemicals are slow and expensive to commercialize. Once pathogens evolve resistance to them, they are useless. Many are being taken off the market and it is increasingly difficult to get new products approved.\n\nGenetic resistance traits are a better solution - no spraying - but are plagued by a basic tradeoff: they usually either work really well but are easy for pathogens to evolve around, or are robust to pathogen evolution but don't work so well.\n\nThis comes down to a basic limitation of plant breeding and biotechnology as practiced today: both amount to hoping the gene you want already exists in nature and embarking on a fishing expedition to find it. Sometimes that works, but there's no reason to believe that genes useful for industrial agriculture will have evolved naturally.\n\n**The Solution**\n\nOhmic Biosciences is taking a different approach. We are protein engineers. We know what traits we want; instead of hoping nature already made them, we're engineering them ourselves.\n\nPlant pathogens have a difficult job. To even start infecting a plant they need to breach the plant's tough cell wall and disable its innate immune system. They do all of this by secreting a whole suite of effector proteins that attack the plant in various ways. We engineer proteins that inhibit those effectors, effectively defanging plant diseases.\n\nWe're starting by focusing on soybean cyst nematode (SCN), a tiny parasitic worm that has completely infested the US and causes >$1.5B in yield loss every year. That number is probably an underestimate, because SCN is an insidious root parasite that rarely causes visible above-ground symptoms - just yield loss.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=73380&key=user_uploads/1293563/79777d2d-a15c-4669-9d68-5cf2a36c8fcf)\n\n_Above: soybean cyst nematode infection on soybean roots._\n\n**About Us**\n\nWe met as postdocs at the University of Colorado Boulder where we worked together for 2.5 years on [**engineering plant hormone receptors**](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01364-5) into biosensors. Before that, PJ worked in CS and synthetic biology and Matt worked in plant genetics and biochemistry.\n\n**Ask**\n\nPlease get in touch if you or anyone you know is interested in protein engineering for agriculture! Find us on LinkedIn [here.](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ohmic-biosciences/)",
        "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/J5Y-ohmic-biosciences-genetically-engineering-disease-resistant-plants",
        "votes": 43,
        "created_at": "2023-07-28T19:41:51.431Z"
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    "id": 30915,
    "name": "FinalDose",
    "slug": "finaldose",
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    "website": "https://finaldose.ai/",
    "all_locations": "Oxford, England, United Kingdom",
    "long_description": "FinalDose is building the first programmable drug - a single smart drug molecule that you can insert any diseased genetic code and it can search and destroy cells upon DNA recognition.  Unlocking 80% of undruggable targets today. Starting with all cancers.",
    "one_liner": "Programmable DNA drug destroying all cancers, unlocking 80% of targets",
    "team_size": 5,
    "industry": "Healthcare",
    "subindustry": "Healthcare -> Therapeutics",
    "launched_at": 1778543597,
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    "batch": "Spring 2026",
    "status": "Active",
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    "stage": "Early",
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    "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/finaldose",
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    "year_founded": 2025,
    "city": "Oxford",
    "country": "GB",
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      "name": "Garry Tan",
      "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/people/garry-tan"
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        "full_name": "Jeff Liu",
        "title": "Founder/CEO",
        "founder_bio": "CEO @ FinalDose (YC P26). Oxford PhD in Oncology. Previous startup (Vivid Dx) solved a multi-decade bottleneck in sepsis diagnostics: low biomass isolation. By overcoming this hurdle, we built the world’s fastest diagnostic system - slashing wait times from 5 days to just 30 minutes. Raised $15M in venture backing. ",
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        "user_id": 2973703,
        "full_name": "Li-Yao Huang",
        "title": "Founder",
        "founder_bio": "Founder at FinalDose (YC P26). DPhil in Biochemistry from Oxford, where he spent 5 years as a postdoctoral researcher at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Led CRISPR screening projects uncovering new druggable targets in cancer cells and built pipelines reducing hit validation time from months to 7 days. Research focuses on BRCA1-deficient cancers and PARP inhibitor resistance mechanisms.",
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        "full_name": "Steven Lin",
        "title": "Founder",
        "founder_bio": "Cofounder and CTO at FinalDose (YC P26). Oxford PhD in Computational Biology with Wellcome Trust full scholarship. Previously Data Lead at Gutsee Biotech. Developed novel machine learning method to use coevolution biology to identify genetic targets that convey drug resistance in viruses. During SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, led UK biobank analysis of human genetics susceptibility for infections",
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      {
        "id": 101229,
        "title": "FinalDose: The first programmable drug to cure all cancers",
        "tagline": "FinalDose is building the first programmable drug platform - a single smart drug molecule that finds diseased cells by their DNA and destroys them. We’re starting with all cancers.",
        "body": "**TL;DR**\n\n**For 60 years, drug discovery has chased proteins. But \\~85% of disease drivers don't have a druggable protein, making them unreachable for modern medicine. The deeper issue: most disease doesn't start at the protein, it starts in the DNA that codes for it. We built a programmable drug that reads DNA inside the cell, decides if it's diseased, and destroys the cell if it is. One platform, reprogrammed to any disease distinguishable on a DNA level.**\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=101229&key=user_uploads/2957085/2cb08187-4767-47e6-845e-1adc642aec61)\n\n[Check us out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=446etIvaYCM&t=2s)\n\n**❌ The Problem**\n\nDrug discovery hasn't really changed in sixty years. Pick a protein, throw millions of molecules at it, spaghetti at a wall, hoping something sticks. 10 years and $2.6B per drug.\n\nThe bigger issue is proteins aren't where most disease starts. Disease starts in the DNA. The protein is downstream - the symptom, not the cause. Which is why \\~85% of validated disease drivers have no druggable protein at all. Cancers driven by MYC, TP53, APC; Viral reservoir; clonal populations that drive systematic risk. All \"undruggable\" with the old protein playbook.\n\n**✨ Our Solution**\n\nWe went straight for the DNA.\n\nWe started with a DNA-sensing protein that undergoes a sharp structural change when it finds its target sequence. We hijacked that structure change and turned it into a kill switch:\n\n1\\. The molecule scans the genome for a hardcoded target sequence.\n\n2\\. When it finds the target sequence, our drug changes in structure\n\n3\\. The structural change triggers a kill switch\n\n4\\. The diseased cell containing the target DNA dies. Neighboring healthy cells are untouched.\n\nSame molecular  molecule, new guide → new drug. This means R&D cycle and cost collapses to near 0.\n\nThe compounding asset: we already have decades of human genetics telling us which sequences cause which disease. We're not searching for new biology - we're turning genetics that's already in the textbooks into drugs.\n\n**⚙️ Our Team**\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=101229&key=user_uploads/854295/ab013db6-2afe-4d60-a0b6-88a575695993)\n\n(Left) **Jeff Liu - CEO**. Oxford PhD in Oncology. Previous startup (Vivid Dx) solved a multi-decade bottleneck in sepsis diagnostics: low biomass isolation. By overcoming this hurdle, we built the world’s fastest diagnostic system - slashing wait times from 5 days to just 30 minutes. Track record of closing institutional rounds - $5M seed and a $10M Pre-Series A.\n\n(Middle) **Li-Yao Huang - CSO**. Oxford PhD in Biochemistry. Developed a comprehensive discovery-to-validation framework utilizing Cas9 and its derivatives to identify and verify novel therapeutic targets from high-throughput genetic-genetic and genetic-drug interaction data. Scientific lead in molecular biology, cellular assays, construct engineering.\n\n(Right) **Steven Lin - CTO**. Oxford PhD in Computational Biology. Previously Data Lead at Gutsee Biotech. Developed novel machine learning method to use coevolution biology to identify genetic targets that convey drug resistance in viruses. During SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, led UK biobank analysis of human genetics susceptibility for infections\n\nThis will be the most general curative modality for any genetic mutation driven disease ever. Love to chat!\n\nFind us at [founders@finaldose.ai](mailto:founders@finaldose.ai)",
        "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/launches/QKj-finaldose-the-first-programmable-drug-to-cure-all-cancers",
        "votes": 37,
        "created_at": "2026-05-12T15:47:16.378Z"
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    "id": 30967,
    "name": "Perseus",
    "slug": "perseus",
    "former_names": [
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      "Mantle"
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    "website": "https://perseus.computer",
    "all_locations": "Bengaluru, KA, India",
    "long_description": "Perseus takes an iterative branching approach to search in high dimensional spaces.\r\n\r\nOur first product helps coding agents find the right codebase context before they write. It searches files, symbols, and dependencies in parallel, so models can make better changes with less trial and error. Perseus Search gives Mythos-level programming ability to Opus-level coding agents.",
    "one_liner": "Applied Lab focused on Search in Latent Spaces.",
    "team_size": 4,
    "industry": "B2B",
    "subindustry": "B2B -> Engineering, Product and Design",
    "launched_at": 1761343890,
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    "batch": "Fall 2025",
    "status": "Active",
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    "regions": [
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      "Partly Remote"
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    "country": "IN",
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        "full_name": "Samrath Chadha",
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        "id": 94906,
        "title": "Mantle - Automate your back office",
        "tagline": "Build internal agents to automate back office work with one prompt",
        "body": "Hey! We’re building Mantle - a clear-cut way to do your repetitive work on autopilot.\n\n**TL;DR**: We think you’re wasting human potential on boring shit. [Book a call here.](http://cal.com/team/mantle/customer-meeting)\n\nWe do this by:\n\n1. **connecting to your tools:** pulling information securely, and building a constantly updating context layer for agents to operate on\n2. **creating and managing your agents:** enter in one prompt, and our system will make the perfect agent to do your work. no fixed workflows, we focus on the goal and allow agents to move dynamically like a human would\n3. **handling updates, schedules and everything else:** whether a new lead pops up in your CRM, a new support ticket rolls into your email, or it’s Friday and you need a report on which leads are the most likely to churn - Mantle handles it all and runs the agents in the background\n\nHere’s Mantle doing a few cool things:\n\n1\\. Searches Stripe for invoices, PostHog for product usage data, and HubSpot for the customer profile - it then uses its context to **generate a report with action items for your customers and sends them to you in Slack.** We recommend putting this on a daily schedule!\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=94906&key=user_uploads/2522177/5cbfd593-9504-4a94-9400-d5cf9c6591d1)\n\n2\\. **Triggers automatically when you get an inbound meeting -** goes through your past calls with the person (if any), searches the web and your Notion for information about them - and writes the information directly into your calendar app (it edits the invite only for you)!\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=94906&key=user_uploads/2522177/4809c2a8-1d5f-4018-8980-4748c5af23e3)\n\n3\\. When you get an email - if valid (not spam/promotion), **we auto-draft a reply to it and store it in your email client.** This draft matches your exact tone and has insights from your past emails, Notion, and whatever else you give it access to. It uses the context layer to learn and search about the person through these tools extremely efficiently, quickly finding all relevant data.\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=94906&key=user_uploads/2522177/384c4258-c5ff-4101-b3c1-de2a4bcb9f56)\n\nWe’ll boost your team’s efficiency 10x in a week. [Book a call here to make that happen.](http://cal.com/team/mantle/customer-meeting)\n\n![uploaded image](/media/?type=post&id=94906&key=user_uploads/89898/24d9fe9b-6bc5-4300-8fc1-63a8e5c24951)\n\n",
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        "votes": 82,
        "created_at": "2025-10-26T02:40:30.611Z"
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