Why we Invested in PipeBio: No-code SaaS for Bioinformatics and Drug Development

Not long ago, biology was primarily a qualitative science. Scientists had to memorize incredible amounts of concepts, and it was challenging to speed up the workflows behind vital discoveries. However, the human costs of the pandemic forced the scientific community to rethink how processes, such as drug development, can be done 10x faster than before.

A significant part of the solution is novel and superior tools. Massive advances in genomics and exponentially decreasing costs of DNA sequencing have transformed biology into data science and created the perfect conditions for this transformation.

PipeBio is the no-code, cloud-based SaaS tool for drug development labs working with genomic data.

Torsten Kolind, a byFounders Collective member specializing in biotech, noted that "no-code bioinformatics is the missing piece with the power to merge two revolutions: in-silico life science, and engineering tools for non-coders. By joining these independent innovation forces, PipeBio is helping enable tomorrow's great biological advancements."

Initially, the founding team of Jannick and Owen have identified a fundamental niche of antibody and peptide analysis and are quickly shipping new measurement axes, such as single-cell analysis. 

With enough velocity, we believe PipeBio can expand to many other verticals in biological drug development and then to all of genomics to become a "Google Maps-like" industry-standard that replaces today's outdated "paper map-like" practices. On the way, it would revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry and save millions of lives by enabling scientists to cure complex diseases with novel drugs.

Founder-market Fit and Fast Execution

There is a fantastic founder/market fit, as CEO and co-founder, Jannick Bendtsen, is an experienced bioinformatician that extensively understands workflows required by the drug development labs. 

He holds a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). He has also previously worked at CLC bio (acquired by QIAGEN), Cartagenia (acquired by Agilent Technologies), and Biomatters (acquired by GraphPad), making him one of the most domain knowledgeable individuals globally. 

CTO and co-founder, Owen Bodley, is a serial entrepreneur and has also worked at Biomatters, where he met Jannick. Together, they created a software product enabling labs to execute their projects at a fraction of the time and money needed if the labs were to build custom solutions themselves. 

What impresses us the most about the team, aside from their extreme customer-centric focus, is the extraordinary pace with which they developed the product, acquired customers, and structured the company - all with minimal resources and while participating in Y Combinator. 

Niche Biotech Vertical with a Huge Upside Potential

The antibody and peptide category is just the starting point of something much bigger. 

Ultimately, Jannick and Owen are motivated by their desire to help the scientific community discover novel drugs and cure the world's worst diseases.

Over time, the product will evolve from an analytics tool to a complete biological drug development platform. 

Interestingly, customers have already started to integrate software tools used in the labs with PipeBio, making PipeBio the core of their labs. Given this organic demand pull, it's only down to PipeBio's ability to ship new features quickly and onboard new customers. ‍

Market-leading Product and Customer-centricity‍

Today, the alternative to PipeBio is often hiring in-house software developers with a bioinformatics background to build custom solutions.

PipeBio's solution is significantly cheaper than having a team of in-house bioinformaticians. It also lives in the cloud, is constantly updated with new features, and is integrated well with existing systems for increased efficiency.

Some of the leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies are among PipeBio's initial customers. They told us that PipeBio’s customer support is 'on another level,' enabling the scientists to create new workflows easily and rapidly.

Customers’ strong conviction in PipeBio validated the product to a great extent and showed us that there's no superior software product available on the market today.