New Mexico Inno's 2024 Startups to Watch list highlights 10 startups we expect to capture headlines in the year ahead. The New Mexico Inno editorial team picked out the 10 companies through a nomination process and our own research and reporting.
You can read all about these 10 Startups to Watch in the Feb. 2 print edition of Albuquerque Business First. The startups will also be featured individually on the New Mexico Inno site in the coming days.
Effectively delivering different types of drugs is a critical part of treating various diseases and infections. Mercury Bio, a Santa Fe-based startup that emerged from stealth in August 2023, has developed a drug delivery platform it thinks can make a big splash for pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
The biomolecular drug delivery platform Mercury Bio calls its "yEV" — which stands for "chimeric extracellular vesicles" — involves drug encapsulation in natural nanoparticles and cell-specific targeting.
The startup first presented that biotechnology at the mRNA-Based Therapeutics Summit in Boston in August 2023, Mercury Bio's co-founder and CEO Bruce McCormick, Ph.D., said. McCormick is joined on Mercury Bio's leadership team by Richard Sayre, Ph.D., who serves as chief science officer, Paul Laur, chief operating officer, John Tomes, director of finance, and David Kerr, patent counsel.
Mercury Bio plans to work with biotech and pharma companies developing new drugs to integrate Mercury Bio's drug delivery platform into their methodology for getting new drugs to targets, McCormick said. It already has one such commercial deal in progress.
Six to eight more collaborating partners could work with the startup before the end of the year. McCormick said Mercury Bio is currently in negotiations with seven parties.
Besides more collaborating partners, McCormick said Mercury Bio has a few studies underway that he said the startup expects to be "quite significant."
"They'll demonstrate the enormous potential of our technology for human application," McCormick said of the studies.
One such study, which Mercury Bio is completing at the University of New Mexico, is set to be performed in March with data available in April. McCormick said a "substantial announcement" could come alongside the completion of that study.
The startup employs 16 people in Santa Fe and has four outside board members.
It operates out of the Santa Fe Business Incubator, where it maintains seven labs. It's raised around $4.5 million to date, including a $2 million seed round announced in September 2023.
In terms of future fundraising, McCormick said Mercury Bio expects to raise around $20 million in 2024. That money, he said, will fuel the startup's relocation into a standalone facility and further scientific growth.
2024 Startups to Watch
Startups to Watch 2024
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El Paso-based FundMiner, co-founded by Alejandro Stevenson-Druan, left, and Chelsea Lamego in 2022. The startup has built an AI-powered software platform to help nonprofits and other large fundraising organizations manage finances and improve financial efficiency.
Dav Anmed
Los Alamos-based Spiritus Technologies, co-founded by CEO Charles Cadieu, left, and CTO Matt Lee, Ph.D., came out of stealth in September 2023. The startup plans to build direct air capture sites using a type of sorbent technology it claims can drastically reduce the cost of removing carbon from the air.
Courtesy of Spiritus Technologies
Albuquerque-based Karoo Health, co-founded by CEO Ian Koons (pictured here) in 2021. The startup has a value-based cardiac health care system that combines on-site and virtual care teams in partnership with cardiology networks, health plans and health systems.
Photo courtesy of Ian Koons
Santa Fe-based Mercury Bio, co-founded by CEO Bruce McCormick (pictured here), emerged from stealth in August 2023. The startup has a biomolecular drug delivery platform that involves drug encapsulation in natural nanoparticles and cell-specific targeting.
Courtesy of Bruce McCormick
Albuquerque-based BuildMySOP, founded by CEO Kady Cravens (pictured here) in 2020. The startup, which recently went through an acquisition deal, helps cannabis companies build and manage standards of procedure through templates and on-hand compliance and process review.
Courtesy Kady Cravens
Los Lunas-based Cheshir Industries, founded by CEO Nicolas Garcia, Ph.D. (pictured here) in late 2022. The startup is developing a gradient index antenna technology that it claims can increase power efficiency and multi-functionality by as much as 10 times.
Courtesy of Nicolas Garcia
Albuquerque-based VastVision.io, co-founded by CEO Kyle Guin (pictured here) in early 2023. The startup has rolled out a software platform that large businesses can use to keep track of physical assets via ultra-high frequency radio frequency identification chips to track assets's location and movement.
Courtesy of Kyle Guin
El Paso-based AizenFlow, co-founded by CEO Marco Vallejo Jr., left, CTO Ian Love, center, and Chief Revenue Officer JaQuan Bryant, right, chief revenue officer, in early 2023. The startup aims to help freight brokerages better manage logistics using artificial intelligence and digital automation processes.
Courtesy of AizenFlow
Los Alamos-based Undesert, co-founded by CEO Nicholas Seet (pictured here) and CTO Hill Kemp in 2021. The startup has developed a technology for purifying different sorts of brackish and produced water using solar energy.
Samantha DAnna
Albuquerque-based Flow Aluminum, co-founded by CTO Chris Fetrow, left, and CEO Tom Chepucavage, right, in late 2022. The startup is commercializing an aluminum CO2 battery design for applications ranging from drone power to large-scale energy storage.
Jacob Maranda
