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Michigan Small Biotechnology Starting Circnova A 3.3 million dollar seed tour raised its technology that uses artificial intelligence to target the so -called “RNA circular DNA”. Development carries a new promise to develop treatments for conditions that currently do not contain drug treatments.

The new financing is also an embrace of the co -founder and CEO Crystal Brown, who has taken an unconventional path to become the founder of biotechnology.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a major molecule that helps convert genetic information into proteins. The circular RNA is a newly discovered category of these structures that make up a circle instead of a rope. It regulates critical biological processes and hope is that treatments based on these molecules will be able to target complex health problems.

“A engine of royal artificial intelligence allows us to identify and design, then the new RNAS, non -encrypted, circular production,” Braun told Techcrunch, developed Circnova.

It is the AI ​​engine similar to the Google alphafold because it also uses AI’s deep learning – not a kind of LLM – to create and analyze the new RNA new circular use of therapeutic use.

Circnova Novaengine, which says she is the first in the world to predict circular DNA structures, but also has a wet laboratory. This means that the artificial intelligence engine produces the actual physical molecules themselves, which can then verify their health and search for them in cooperation with the University of Michigan, Brown said.

“We can reverse engineering. We can move from the sequence to the structure.” We can move from the structure to the sequence when developing the molecule. ”

The goal is to “treat diseases that we have not yet dealt with, things such as ovarian cancer, triple negative breast cancer, neurological degenerative diseases, and rare genetic diseases.”

Technology is based on the work of the founder of Circnova Joe Deangelo, the chief scientific official at the startup and former CEO of Biotech Neochromosome as well as the former CSO in biological sciences. Investor William Grinwitz is the chief business official and co -founder to start operating.

Lessons from a failed startup

Brown looks an insecure founder for such a company because even about seven years ago, her career was in the auto manufacturing industry.

She thought she was climbing the ladder to become a “C-SUITE Car Director” when her friend presented her to an executive manager running a start-up company in life sciences. The CEO of the startup company was looking for a business manager.

Brown, curiosity, offered to keep books part -time, which has evolved to bring work tactics from auto factories to help startup, such as repairing their business contracts.

She gave up the team with questions about the flag until some of her friends told her that she should leave cars and work full time in biotechnology.

“I was like, no one will take me seriously. I never studied biology. She remembers:” I studied Poli Sci and women’s studies. “

But she jumped anyway, as her huge salaries lower her job consisting of six numbers to up to the salaries of the trainee. She learned about startups, raised money, and worked on its way to the operations manager. She said that the company had issued publicly, giving it a healthy payment enough to buy a house.

It has been successfully, as it launched an information technology company in the field of biotechnology, a contract laboratory.

The money was collected, then made all the mistakes of the first classic founder. “I hired people very quickly. She said,” I opened my laboratory. ”

Two years later, she was burned with her money, and she knew that she had to close her. She broke her heart and bank account. She remembers that she lost her home.

But it gained an excellent reputation in the coherent start -up community in Michigan and VCS told her, “You are a good founder anyway,” Brown remembers. Many of them said they will be open to financing their next idea.

Knowing that it will soon be available for a new project, Deangelo has started sending its scientific materials to the RNA. He had an idea of ​​how to use it with the detection of artificial intelligence drugs.

“He started sending me, literally every morning at 5:30 am, and five to 10 articles,” she remembered. “I did not close the other company along the way.”

But she studied and slept convinced that this idea could work. They founded Circnova in May 2023.

“I went to this with great caution, and I threw some things on the wall. What can I do with a $ 15,000 grant to start?”

These first expenses developed the first operation to start operating and another $ 25,000 from a national scientific institution grant that led to the first patent request.

She started dividing her time between Michigan and Boston, near her clients and customers in the list of wishes like Moderna and Pfizer.

As for Bewun again, VCS like Nia Batts, the general partner at Union Heritage Ventures, had no problem with it.

“We are not strange to the flexibility that is necessary when she participates in the entrepreneurial trip,” Batz said, adding that she knew that she wanted to support this new project “at the moment” that Braun met and heard about the idea.

This round led the 3.3 million dollars seed by VC South Loop Ventures, which focuses on diversity and includes investment from Dug Song, Union Heritage, Michigan Rise, Invest Detroit, KALAMAZOO Forward Ventures and Spark Capital.