Three McMaster startup companies — Block Biosciences, Tessella Biosciences Inc. and NodeAI — have each received $245,000 in the fifth round of McMaster Seed Fund (MSF) investments.
The awards were announced at Mentorship Day, an event held on Oct. 6, featuring pitches from 11 McMaster startups and a fireside chat with resident entrepreneur Daryl Sherman and McMaster’s vice-president, Research, Gianni Parise.
Mentorship Day is about celebrating connections, Parise told a crowd of more than 75 entrepreneurs and mentors: The synergy between experience and ambition, research and real-world impact, and people who believe in each other’s potential.
“Over the past few years, we’ve built something special, connecting students, faculty, researchers, hospital, industry, and investment partners,” he said.
“One of the pillar programs supporting our entrepreneurs is the McMaster Seed Fund and I’m excited to see how these investments advance these companies.”
Entrepreneur Daryl Sherman chats with Vice-president, Research, Gianni Parise, at the Mentorship Day fireside chat.
Block Biosciences is developing first-in-class precision medicine that can be taken proactively by patients after a diagnosis of lung, breast or skin cancer, to prevent secondary metastatic brain cancer, which happens when cancer cells from another part of the body travel to the brain.
“The MSF investment has been pivotal in laying the foundations of Block Biosciences as the vehicle to translate this exciting science into patient impact,” says Amie Phinney, CEO of Block Biosciences.
“The funding has enabled us to establish the core infrastructure and onboard a team of exceptional scientific and business talent.”
Tessella Biosciences has developed a material that could accelerate medical research and drug discovery by making it easier to 3D print soft, realistic tissue models.
Its “bioink” structures simulate how real tissue works in the body, so they can test drugs or understand how human cells react in a more realistic way. For example, its 3D models of the lung can stretch and breathe like an actual lung.
The investment is critical for the company at this stage, says Jose Moran-Mirabal, associate professor of chemistry and chemical biology and CEO of Tessella Biosciences.
“Not only is MSF enabling Tessella to scale up production of our advanced research-grade bioinks, it’s also being leveraged to secure additional funding that will translate our platform technology into materials compatible for in-human use.”
NodeAI uses artificial intelligence to more accurately diagnose lung cancer and give patients a better chance of survival. Its diagnostic software, powered by an AI model trained on a massive database of ultrasound images of both healthy and cancerous lymph nodes, has been shown to double the accuracy of the standard diagnostic methods in clinical trials.
“The investment brings NodeAI one step closer to transforming lung cancer staging. This support accelerates our path to market by enabling us to hire two outstanding McMaster graduates who will advance our regulatory and product pipelines,” says Mackensey Bacon, CEO and co-founder of NodeAI.
“Guided by McMaster-grown excellence, driven by efficiency, and focused on real clinical impact, this milestone marks an important step toward building NodeAI into a leading Canadian med-tech company.”
This latest round of investment furthers the seed fund’s mission to support McMaster research-based startups with the potential to generate significant economic or social impact in the Hamilton area and beyond.
Since its inception in 2021, the fund has invested more than $4M in 13 companies.