NEW YORK — Genomic data analytics firm Galatea Bio said Thursday that it has raised $25 million in a private financing round.
Participating investors included F-Prime, Helios Digital Ventures, Digitalis Ventures, CEI Ventures, AME Cloud, Alexandria, Founders Collective, the Stanford President's Fund, and HBM Genomics.
Founded in 2021, Galatea is building a genomic database focused on non-European populations with the goal of using the resource to support biomarker and drug target discovery, as well as clinical diagnostic development.
With the funding, Miami-based Galatea said it aims to expand its database with whole-genome and -exome sequences of 10 million people of non-European ancestry, which will be paired with longitudinal clinical data and real-world health evidence.
It also said it plans to expand its data-analysis platform to include multimodal data and AI-driven applications to refine genetic risk analysis for Mendelian and complex diseases, biomarker discovery, and clinical trial optimization.
"By analyzing a broad spectrum of genetic [data], longitudinal health records, and real-world evidence data from multi-ancestry populations, Galatea is generating new insights into the biological processes that underlie health and disease," Galatea President and CEO Carlos Bustamante said in a statement. "This work represents a critical step toward truly personalized healthcare on a global scale."
The company has strategic partnerships and intellectual property licensing deals with Stanford University and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative around genomic data interrogation and interpretation, and has established collaborations with health systems including Baptist Health-South Florida.
Earlier this year, Galatea launched StrataRisk, a polygenic risk score software platform designed to assess the polygenic contribution to common diseases such as cardiovascular, metabolic disorders and cancer susceptibility.
In mid-2024, the company signed an agreement to use DNAnexus' Precision Health Data Cloud to manage, analyze, and broaden the accessibility of genomic datasets of non-European origin.
Galatea also noted this week that Jeff Gulcher has joined the company as chief medical officer and Francisco De La Vega has been appointed as chief technology officer. In addition, Muzammil Mansuri (formerly of Sanofi, Gilead, and Flagship Pioneering) and Wale Ayeni, managing partner at Helios Digital Ventures, have joined Galatea's board of directors.