A Denver-based biosciences software company born from a Harvard research institute is ramping up its sales strategy with a $3.7 million seed round this week.
Pluto Biosciences was launched in 2021 from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, an organization that supports new ideas and technologies in biology that can be commercialized. With just $1 million in pre-seed funding, the company developed and began selling the service of a cloud-based platform that scientists can use to manage, compute and visualize biological data, said Founder and CEO Rani Powers.
Today, Powers said 13 different labs between the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus and Boulder campus are using the software, in addition to public biopharma labs in the U.S. and U.K.
Powers, who received her doctoral degree in computational bioscience at CU Anschutz, said it was during her time working as a research assistant there that she began to wonder why researchers were still banging their heads on their keyboards trying to get Excel spreadsheets to open.
Having worked in other software development during her studies, including a mobile app for genomics, Powers said she knew that other applications used more intuitive interfaces. So where were those solutions for scientists, some of whom were working on therapies and treatments that could seriously improve people's lives?
"I realized I was getting tired of waiting for somebody to build the software I wanted to see in the lab," Powers said.
She said that Pluto broadly aims to solve three of the most common challenges experienced in a biology lab.
The first is the transfer, storage and management of massive data files, which researchers often must figure out how to get on their computers. For a scientist who is gathering RNA sequencing data, for example, that can mean eight to 10 gigabytes of data per sample — one sample being just one person in a study of hundreds of people.
Pluto integrates data files from cloud to cloud and stores it so that researchers don't have to manage that hefty data, Powers said.
The second issue usually arises in what Powers calls the mapping of gene expression, or feeding all of the data through an algorithm that translates it into a meaningful trend. At universities, she said researchers often need to work with IT professionals to copy the code that translates that data and deploy it to whatever system they are using. Pluto does all of that on the same platform that stores the data.
Thirdly, Powers said the platform has computational biology algorithms that turn the data into visualizations.
For research labs, the upshot of the product is extended patient lives, faster development of drugs to market, and faster publishing of a new discovery, she said.
In all, she said Pluto represents a scientific take-back of data management that empowers researchers. In pharmaceuticals, Powers said many companies are currently using consultants and agencies to make visualizations and store their data.
"It’s been really interesting to watch scientists using Pluto regain that authority," she said.
Powers said she plans to expand the five-person company to 12 or 15 by the end of the year with the funding. As Pluto's sole salesperson over the last year, she said her focus will be to build out go-to-market teams.
Powers attributes the quick development of the software from its inception to a focus on best practices in B2B software-as-a-service platforms, rather than tools geared specifically toward solving scientific problems.
"We are a biology company, but we are pulling from knowledge in the entire [software] industry to really create that user experience,” she said.
Powers said she learned from previous experience to create an internal code at the company to help employees translate between the science and the software. Many people on Pluto's small team don't have a science background at all because Powers said she focused on hiring the best software engineers in the industry.
That was also what brought Pluto to select Austin, Texas-based Silverton Partners to lead the funding round, Powers said. The group focuses on companies that develop business software solutions.
