All Access

Health Tech Deals

Health Tech Deals Alerts

Alert

Standard

Health Tech Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Health Tech Deals

BFD Expert Voices

Shared lab inventory and project management startup Genemod hopes to be a kind of Salesforce for the life science market.

Why it matters: The Seattle-based company raised $4.5 million in seed funding to build a cloud-based, collaborative research and development platform for life science researchers, CEO Jacob Lee tells Axios exclusively.

Deal details: Defy.vc and LDV Partners co-led the round and were joined by Dolby Ventures and Cercano Management.

Funds will go toward bolstering brand-name recognition, focusing sales on for-profit biopharmaceutical companies and hiring.

Lee declined to say when he foresees the startup raising a Series A.

How it works: Genemod's platform includes tools for collaborative data acquisition, project documentation, inventory management and progress tracking.

The company licenses its services to customers on a yearly basis, and rates depend on the number of features used and overall usage rates.

"It’s not so much a Slack for scientists as a central research hub or operating system," says Lee. "We differentiate ourselves by being lightweight."

Lee says while Genemod has thousands of academic clients who use a free version of its software, the company is now focused exclusively on courting larger biopharma clients such as current customers AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb.

What they're saying: "Their biggest competitor though is a physical notebook and literal spreadsheets, all these traditional ways of doing things," Defy.vc managing director and Genemod investor Neil Sequeira tells Axios.

The backstory: Like many startups, Genemod started as a side hustle when Lee, a bench scientist working for a biopharmaceutical company, grew tired of manual, clumsy R&D tools and decided to develop his own solution with co-founder Jin Choe.

"We're at the cutting edge of science and using these rudimentary tools," Lee recalls thinking. "We wanted a central repository for data that I could share with colleagues, so what started as a side project turned into a startup."

State of play: Genemod competitors range from nimble startups to well-established unicorns with big-name pharmaceutical clients, but Lee says the company stands out by offering a lean and streamlined set of services that won't overwhelm.

Benchling, whose platform supported two of the antibody treatments developed to treat COVID, in 2021 collected $100 million in Series F capital at a $6.1 billion valuation, per Bloomberg.

LabArchives, which offers researchers tools for managing and collecting data and inventory, was acquired in 2021 by Insightful Science.

Quartzy, a lab management platform, in 2016 collected $17 million in Series B funds.

Exclusive: Genemod's plan to be the "Salesforce of biotech"

The Seattle-based startup raised $4.5M in seed funds.

Illustration of a gloved hand with tweezers holding a $100 bill.

Health tech deals

Shared lab inventory and project management startup Genemod hopes to be a kind of Salesforce for the life science market.Why it matters: The Seattle-based company raised $4.5 million in seed funding to build a cloud-based, collaborative research and development platform for life science researchers, CEO Jacob Lee tells Axios exclusively.

topics

politics-policy

epstein-files

donald-trump

2026-midterm-elections

immigration

behind-the-curtain

race-and-equity

technology

privacy-tech-regulation

automation-and-ai

tiktok-news

big-tech

social-media

cybersecurity

economy

social-security

inflation

tariffs

federal-reserve

jobs

transportation

business

c-suite

retail-news

crypto

media

elon-musk

dealmaking

health

rfk-jr

drug-prices

axios-explains-abortion

public-health

world

israel

axios-explains-ukraine

iran

russia

china

energy-climate

nuclear-energy

climate-energy-policy

climate-change

extreme-weather

alternative-energy

electric-vehicles

science

emerging-tech

biomedicine

newsletters

charlotte

salt-lake-city

denver

boulder

kansas-city

austin

chicago

dallas

detroit

washington-dc

atlanta

indianapolis

nashville

nw-arkansas

columbus

richmond

san-francisco

boston

des-moines

houston

phoenix

miami

philadelphia

seattle

new-orleans

colorado-springs

huntsville

raleigh

san-antonio

twin-cities

pittsburgh

arapahoe

douglas

san-diego

tampa-bay

portland

cleveland

axios-local

axios-pro

axios-live

the-axios-show

Exclusive: Genemod's plan to be the "Salesforce of biotech"

What to read next