LunaPBC Secures $4.6M in Venture Funding to Advance LunaDNA, the First Platform Empowering Individuals to Share Health Data for Equity and Research

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) learned from foreign media reports that LunaPBC announced today the completion of a new round of venture capital financing amounting to $4.6 million. Key investors participating in this round include ARCH Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Illumina Ventures, and Osage University Partners.

These funds will be used to promote corporate research, collaborations (such as the partnership with Genetic Alliance), enhance data platforms, and expand the marketing team.

It is reported that LunaPBC previously completed its seed round and venture capital financing in December 2017 and May 2018, respectively. To date, the company has raised a total of $8.6 million through three rounds of financing.

LunaPBC, founded in 2017 and headquartered in La Jolla, California, is a private public-benefit corporation focused on the health and science sectors. LunaDNA, developed by LunaPBC, is the first health and genomic data platform that encourages users to share their personal health data. LunaDNA is committed to business transparency and protecting user privacy.

The platform provides high-quality services to pharmaceutical, insurance, and healthcare IT companies, improving patient health by discovering new treatments and gaining deeper insights into patient treatment outcomes. LunaDNA supports users in sharing their health data to drive medical research and create shared community benefits. As users of the LunaDNA platform, individuals can receive compensation for contributing to health and medical research.

In December 2018, LunaDNA received a groundbreaking authorization from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), allowing it to use individuals’ genomic and health data as currency in exchange for company shares. Naturally, LunaDNA maintains “business transparency” and prioritizes the protection of user privacy. Based on the LunaDNA platform, users can advance research conducted on the platform, receive company shares or other services of interest commensurate with the value of their contributions, and connect with collaborative partners.

Yumin Choi, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, stated, “We need to reframe the role of individuals in leveraging health data to drive disease discovery. LunaPBC’s ‘people-centric’ platform model enables individuals to create value through collaboration, rather than serving merely as research subjects. The platform will build a vast dataset comprising contextual information and user-reported outcomes, sustaining its impact by generating public benefit.”

Genetic Alliance recently announced its partnership with LunaPBC. The company is leveraging LunaDNA’s data management model to serve 45 institutions encompassing more than 50,000 patients. The funding raised by LunaPBC will facilitate the integration of Genetic Alliance’s platform, providing individuals and communities with enhanced resources to support their health management while advancing research.

“People are increasingly dissatisfied with the current state of how personal health data is used and leveraged, and the time is right to change the paradigm of data management,” said Bob Kain, CEO and Co-Founder of LunaPBC. “Our community-based solution and its underlying technology provide individuals with transparent, controllable data management and data dividends. The addition of top talent at LunaPBC, new investors, and the growth in the number of LunaDNA users clearly demonstrate that LunaPBC continues to grow and strengthen.”

LunaDNA currently accepts DNA files from vendors, including 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, and FamilyTreeDNA, as well as health surveys generated by LunaDNA itself. The funds raised in this round will facilitate the inflow of more diverse types of data into LunaDNA, including whole-genome and exosome-derived DNA, RNA, microbiome data, electronic health records (EHRs), and related documents generated by fitness and activity trackers, smart devices, and other sources.

ARCH, established in 1986, is a firm specializing in early-stage venture capital. The company primarily invests in enterprises co-founded by leading scientists and entrepreneurs, with investment focuses spanning biotechnology, health diagnostics, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and therapeutics. ARCH possesses extensive experience in technology commercialization.

ARCH has secured funding from 10 venture capital funds, totaling over $3 billion, and has invested in more than 150 companies. ARCH’s investors include large corporations, pension funds, endowments, financial institutions, and private investors.

Bain Capital Ventures primarily invests in seed-stage technology startups, with a focus on sectors such as software and digital transformation. The firm partners with entrepreneurs who have breakthrough ideas to accelerate the commercialization of their innovations.

Since 2000, Bain Capital has managed approximately $3.6 billion in assets, helped create more than 200 companies, and enabled them to generate profits, including investments in DocuSign, Jet.com, Kiva Systems, LinkedIn, Rapid7, SurveyMonkey, Taleo, and TellApart.

F-Prime Capital is a global venture capital firm investing in the healthcare and technology sectors, with investment teams located in the United States, China, Japan, and Mumbai. The firm originated from Fidelity Investments, which was founded in 1946 and currently manages over $2 trillion in assets. Over the past four decades, the company has invested in numerous pioneering companies in the technology and life sciences fields, including Atari, MCI, ROLM Corp., Alibaba, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx.

Illumina VenturesIllumina Ventures is an independent venture capital firm that primarily invests in early-stage companies. Its key investment areas focus on genomics, particularly the application of genomics in life sciences, healthcare, agriculture and environmental science, public safety, and personal health. As an affiliate of Illumina, Illumina Ventures supports the company’s mission to improve human health through genomic research.

OUP is a venture capital firm that focuses on partnering with research universities to invest in their spin-off startups, with investment areas including software, hardware, and life sciences. To date, the firm has established partnerships with more than 80 universities, including 36 of the top 50 U.S. universities by research expenditure, and has invested in affiliates of over 50 universities.

Genetic Alliance is a nonprofit organization dedicated to health advocacy and the advancement of genetic technologies. Adhering to a people-centered approach, the organization collaborates with individuals and communities to reform healthcare systems in order to meet urgent public needs. Genetic Alliance is primarily funded by government grants, corporate sponsorships, individual donations, and support from other services and programs.

(Compiled by Tang Lulu)