Big news on the bioscience block: RealSeq Biosciences, Inc., a Santa Cruz company harnessing the power of RNA fragmentomics for real-time disease diagnostics, has just announced the successful completion of a rather buoyant seed funding round: $5M. This cash injection will enable RealSeq to mobilize its innovative RiboMarker™ molecular diagnostics platform towards its first target: Valley Fever, a pernicious fungal disease that’s curiously linked to the shifting sands of climate change.

This oversubscribed round of fundraising got a shot in the arm from a team-up of Tech Coast Angels Los Angeles and Tech Coast Angels Orange County. Other financial supporters read like a who's who of the investment world, including the Chemical Angel Network, Angel Star Ventures, members of the Berkeley Angel Network, Virtual Angels Network, MEDA Angels, and TiE SoCal Angels.

“RealSeq’s RNA fragmentomics platform has the potential to achieve new diagnostics capabilities allowing earlier detection supporting more informed treatment decisions and better outcomes,” says John Grant, Ph.D., Tech Coast Angels, Los Angeles. “The RiboMarker Valley Fever test validates the platform for future partnerships and market opportunities in other areas including oncology.”

Sergio Barberan-Soler, Ph.D., the big cheese at RealSeq, echoes this enthusiasm: “RiboMarkers are set to turn the medical world on its head, altering how we spot, monitor, and treat diseases in real time. This financial boost gives us the leg up we need to keep our technology rolling out over the next couple of years.”

The seed round will push the RiboMarker program forward, with a particular focus on elusive and crippling fungal diseases where speedy treatment is a game-changer for patient outcomes. RealSeq has its sights set on several goals:

• Proving the RiboMarker platform's worth

• Furthering the Valley Fever LDT

• Growing R&D and business operations

As a sweetener on this deal, John Grant, Ph.D., will bring his considerable experience to RealSeq's board of directors. Dr. Grant boasts a robust career that includes over three decades at 3M, during which he flexed his corporate muscles in global commercialization, strategic planning, and corporate development across multiple 3M ventures. He also wears hats in several investment groups and startup accelerators.

Last year, RealSeq Biosciences raced past its revenue goals while generating solid customer validation. The company's technology is a hot commodity among researchers in big pharma, biotech companies, and academic institutions.

The skinny on RealSeq Biosciences: This privately-owned biotech company, nestled in Santa Cruz, California, is leading the pack in creating groundbreaking technologies that revolve around RNA fragmentomics, small RNA analysis, NGS research tools, and biomarkers. With a visionary approach to RNA fragmentomics-based diagnostics, RealSeq is driving the future of dynamic disease markers.

About RiboMarkers

RiboMarkers are highly informative markers of disease and disease progression for conditions ranging from cancer to infectious diseases like funguses or viruses such as COVID. RiboMarkers can be used to determine not only whether a patient has a disease but also the state of the disease’s progression, for example, dissemination of an infection from the primary site throughout the body, markers of residual disease or possibly even of disease termination.

Our first RiboMarker diagnostic is for the fungal disease known as Valley Fever (VF). VF is a debilitating disease most often found in the Western states such as Arizona and CA and in Mexico and South America. When VF disseminates throughout the body patients require lifelong antifungal treatments that are costly and not very effective. The VF RiboMarker program allows better detection and analysis of dissemination and residual disease in these patients. VF and other “dimorphic” funguses diseases such as Histoplasmosis are dramatically increasing due to climate change.

Scientists at RealSeq are committed to expanding the RiboMarker diagnostic platform to address other fungal diseases as well as any other condition where the ability to accurately predict, identify, and track dissemination critically impacts patient outcomes.