A large portion of clinical trials, which are essential for drug development and other medical research, are delayed due to a lack of participants.
While the U.S. government runs a website that helps patients find clinical trials to enroll in, there's plenty of room to improve upon. That, at least, is the argument of Brandon Li and Michael "Bask" Gill. As the founders of Power Life Sciences Inc., Li and Gill created a service designed to make it easier to help people with particular diseases and maladies find and enroll in trials for treatments for their ailments.
"Our goal is to bring the process of discovering and accessing clinical trials into the future," the San Francisco-based startup's founders wrote in a post on its website. "We believe groundbreaking therapeutic options should be available to all patients — regardless of geographical location, ethnicity or socioeconomic background."
Power's website now features more than 30,000 clinical trials aimed at treating 10,000 different medical conditions, according to a news release.
The company has some new funds to further develop its service. It announced Tuesday it's raised $7 million in seed funding in a round led by Footwork and CRV. Power will use the funding to hire more people to its team, Li told the Business Journal.
Read on for more about Power's new round and other seed funding news from this past week:
Freedom Biosciences Inc., Tiburon, $10.5 million: MBX Capital led the round for this developer of psychedelic-based treatments for mental health conditions. PsyMed Ventures, Village Global and The Yale Startup also participated.
Power Life Sciences Inc. (dba Power), San Francisco, $7 million: Footwork and CRV led the round for this provider of a service that matches people with particular ailments with clinical trials testing treatments for their maladies. Artis Ventures, South Park Commons and AirAngel also invested.
Kinetic Inc. (dba CompScience), San Francisco, $6 million: Working Capital Fund, Preface Ventures, Hustle Fund and Pathbreaker Ventures invested in this developer of video and computer vision software designed to prevent industrial accidents.
Mural Technologies Inc., San Francisco, $5.6 million: Galaxy Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Firstminute Capital and 186 Ventures invested in this provider of software that helps decentralized autonomous organizations manage and distribute the funds they've raised.
Vestaboard Inc., San Francisco, $5 million: Baroda Ventures invested in the extension round for this developer of a digital messaging board. Acme Capital co-founder Hany Nada, Shopify executive Farhan Thawar, Blackbird House CEO Bridgid Coulter and Social Leverage co-founder Howard Lindzon also invested.
Uplift Labs Inc., Palo Alto, $2.5 million: NBA player Seth Curry, former volleyball player Callie Rivers Curry, former NFL player David DeCastro, Atma Capital, Launch Fund, The Syndicate and Ethos Fund invested in this provider of motion analysis software for athletes.
