Creating a Beacon During a Time of Uncertainty for the Biotech Community

This morning, together with Chris Gibson and David Bearss Ph.D. , we announced the Altitude Lab Fund, a pre-seed fund to support SBIR-awarded startups hit by current federal funding uncertainty.

The US is the global leader in medical and healthcare innovation (as well as most other deep tech fields) because we, through our votes and tax dollars, made a decades long commitment to funding scientific advancement and translating it into commercial opportunities. While other nations have attempted to catch up, they haven’t fully realized that funding entrepreneurism is where economic gains in science accelerate. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program has enabled this transformation in the US–taking discoveries and insights from academic research and translating them into real world applications in medicine. With the recent shifts in federal funding policy, this economic architecture is at risk.

I've had the privilege of building at three founder-led startups—two in the U.S. and one in the U.K. Both U.S.-based startups were funded by SBIR grants and later became publicly traded companies. Fluidigm (now Standard BioTools ) , founded by Stephen Quake, D.Phil. and Gajus Worthington , received $2.4 million in SBIR funding, which helped lay the foundation for raising over $90 million in private investment. Just a few years later, Fluidigm went public in 2011. Similarly, Recursion , founded by Dean Y. Li, MD, PhD and Chris Gibson , secured $3.5 million in SBIRs, ultimately raising $1.1 billion before its IPO in 2021.

This kind of trajectory—where early federal funding fuels major private investment and public market success—is incredibly rare in the U.K., EU, and Asia, where small business support programs remain underdeveloped.

It would be easy to write off my personal experiences at SBIR funded companies as one-offs except that, like all publicly funded initiatives, the data is accessible and remarkable. For example, at the National Cancer Institute, we observe that for every one dollar of SBIR awarded 2.5 is returned.?

That’s why in the wake of Deep Seek and China’s massive uptick in drug development in 2024 I am baffled that federal funding for NIH, NSF, and through these agencies, SBIR, would be cut to such a degree now. While minimizing inefficiency in federal spending is laudable, the risk of sledgehammering through this system is too high. The scale and speed of these policy changes have placed an estimated 1,500 health-related startups in financial limbo. If the US is to maintain its leadership on a global stage, we can’t sacrifice four years of scientific advancement. Patients are waiting. And it is our role as industry leaders to step up for the system that has proven itself to bring best in class medicines forward.?

Altitude Won’t Sit Silent

At Altitude Lab about 25% of our portfolio have received SBIR awards. Together, they earned $5M in SBIR funding and have already gone on to earn $83M in private funding. SBIR funded? startups are 10-15X more likely to go earn venture capital with 65% of startups raising more than $5M. For these reasons, we believe that SBIRs have a critical role in accelerating our industry and economy and we want to help.?

Over the past week Chris, Dave, and I have been building a pre-seed fund called the Altitude Lab Fund. Chris and Dave will lead the fund alongside myself and an investment committee. Fees and carry from the fund will support Altitude Lab’s growth and mission.?

The fund will provide selected SBIR-reviewed proposals with:?

• $100,000–$250,000 in pre-seed investment capital
• 12 months of lab and office space
• Admission to Altitude Lab’s competitive accelerator program which includes exclusive mentorship with leading industry executives and access to top tier national funds

Our goal is to keep America a leader on the global stage by supporting some of the highest potential startups and scientists in the country.

I hope you’ll join us whether it is passing on this opportunity to a founder friend or by finding another way to support a bright founder in need. In this critical time, it's our responsibility to stand up for science in any way we can.

Apply for residency and funding here.