Mammoth Biosciences
Alumni Spotlights
Meet Trevor and Ashley — two young entrepreneurs looking to democratize disease detection with Mammoth Biosciences.
Mammoth Biosciences is a biotech company that has developed the world’s first and only CRISPR-enabled detection platform capable of sensing any biomarker or disease with DNA/RNA. In the long term, they aim to create a credit-card sized testing strip that will make it easy, fast, and affordable for physicians in hospitals, at clinics, or even consumers at home to test multiple diseases — from common infections, to cancer or STDs. Sounds amazing? Keep reading to find out about their story…
Trevor Martin and Ashley Tehranchi initially founded the company in May 2017 with the goal of democratizing disease detection. To do so, the company obtained an exclusive license to IP from Berkeley and went through the NFX Guild accelerator, raising an initial seed round from investors including NFX, Mayfield, 8VC, AME Cloud, Kairos, and Wireframe Ventures. As the company grew, CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna invested and helped facilitate an introduction to Janice Chen and Lucas Harrington, who at the time were researchers in Jennifer’s lab at Berkeley — eventually, they along with Jennifer Doudna came on as co-founders as well, leading scientific research.
The company launched out of stealth mode in April 2018, just short of a year after its founding with the goal of fundamentally changing the way the medical community and consumers interact with the $45 billion global disease detection market. To do this, they aim to bring the power of versatile DNA/RNA testing to the point-of-care in a scalable and universal platform.
Most recently, Mammoth announced their Series A round of $23M, led by Mayfield with participation from NFX and 8VC, and private investors Tim Cook, Jeff Huber, Brook Byers and Bob Nelsen. Mammoth also welcomed infectious disease expert Charles Chui and protein engineering expert Dave Savage to its Scientific Advisory Board. The new expertise and funding will allow the company to build out its IP portfolio, expand the team, and develop an infrastructure for partners to build on Mammoth’s CRISPR platform, with a keen eye on pharmaceutical and agricultural partnerships.
These visionary entrepreneurs are just starting! Mammoth’s next step is to bring the world’s first CRISPR-enabled disease detection platform to the mass market in a scalable and responsible manner. Beyond that, “we are in the process of developing a CRISPR-based testing application that could host any number of tests; the iOS of CRISPR, if you will.”
How did Cardinal Ventures fit into their journey?
Trevor Martin received his PhD in Biology from Stanford University, where he first became convinced that there was an opportunity to leverage recent advances in technology to create a different class of accessible diagnostics. According to Trevor, the Cardinal Ventures program helped lay the foundation of connections that enabled an outsider team of scientists to connect with the right mentors and understand how the startup ecosystem functions. Read more about how we work with our founders here.
Mammoth is helping bring CRISPR out of the lab and into people’s everyday lives through their first commercial product, mentioned above, which will give people a better understanding of their own health, increase accessibility, and ultimately, democratize healthcare. Back then, we believed in Mammoth because we saw passion, drive and vitality in the team and because they had an outstanding vision. Today, they are envisioning a world with a CRISPR-enabled platform, on which Mammoth and partners can build an infinite number of tests, both within healthcare and across industries such as agriculture, oil and gas, and forensics. We are extremely proud of all of their accomplishments; and can’t wait to see what their next move is.
For the reader
Are there any opportunities that you would like to share with the community (i.e. job opportunities, etc.)? Mammoth is currently reviewing partnership requests from those interested in building on its CRISPR-based platform, and fielding job applications from those interested in joining the all-star team. To learn more, visit https://mammoth.bio/connect
Is there anything that you are looking for right now? Our current listings can be found here. Generally, we are always interested in hiring world-class talent that is excited to transform the healthcare industry.
