Finalist Paralell Health Pitches at Startup Battlefield | TechCrunch Disrupt 2023

Yeah May I have your attention please welcome TechCrunch managing editor Matt Burns Hi everyone I'm Matt Burns thank you so Much for coming back for the last day of TechCrunch disrupt and the final round Of startup battlefield for 2023. I gotta Take you back to yesterday after the Show ended TechCrunch editorial staff Picked the finalists and it was Contentious they got loud people had Feelings hurt and friendships were Almost lost but together TechCrunch Editorial senior staff narrowed it down To six different companies these Companies you've already seen They presented within the last two days But they're back to a whole new panel of Judges they're gonna have six minutes to Present and they're gonna get eight Minutes of questions from the the judges Expect deeper questions more thoughtful Questions as well too as we go forward Because we want to dive deep into these Companies history and their future as Well the companies are competing for a Hundred thousand dollar check from TechCrunch to them there's no equity Taken we don't charge a fee for this This is a prize that we'd love to give Out to companies and we'd love to see Pictures of this giant check making its Way down Market Street in San Francisco And through airports around the world so

With that I'm going to bring out the Judges and we're going to get going so Judges come on out Foreign I have to read some bios now Okay starting next to me right to my my Left is how is my moon Hamid He's partner at Kleiner Perkins he's Been an early stage investor in and Served on the boards of some of the most Innovative software companies of recent Times including box figma intercom Netscope slack and Yammer prior to Joining Kleiner Perkins Hamid was the Co-founder of social capital and prior To that a partner at U.S Venture Partners next to him is mar personson Founding partner of PVC Mar has earned a PhD in electrical Engineering from Stanford University and Developed groundbreaking techniques of Optimizing the analog systemic Conductors since then she's accrued 13 Years of founder experience co-founded Three startups in Mobile e-commerce Enterprise software and semiconductor Industries and is registered 14 separate Patents as pair's co-founder and Managing partner Mar brings operational And Technical expertise to the Investment team Next to her is Charles Hutson founder And managing partner of precursor Ventures precursor is an early stage

Venture Capital firm focusing on Investing in the First Institutional Round of Investments for the most Promising software and Hardware Companies prior to founding precursor Ventures Charles's partner at soft Tech VC in this role he focused on Identifying investment opportunities in Mobile infrastructure mobile Applications and Marketplace Next to him is Marissa Mayer Marissa is The CEO and co-founder of sunshine a Startup building smart everyday apps to Help manage your relationships and free Up your time previously Marissa was a CEO of Yahoo where she led a Transformation of the company Rejuvenating his culture growing to more Than one billion users worldwide and Reinventing Yahoo's business Marissa Also spent 13 years at Google as an Early employee and the first woman Engineer for more than a decade she led Product management for Google search Google Maps Google news and other Products next to her It's Matthew panzerino he's been a Professional photographer and media Founder served as a managing editor for The next web and most recently The editor-in-chief of TechCrunch where He served as lead editor for the last 10 Years which meant for the last 10 years He's not boss and now he's leaving I

Want to thank you Matthew from the Bottom of my heart for your Opportunities your grace And your understanding of my expense Reports thank you so much Last we have Dana settle Dana is a Co-founder and managing partner at Graycroft as a member of gray cross Management team committee she was Responsible for the firm's operations Investment strategy and vision Dana is On the investment committee for all of Gray cross funds and has been involved In all phases of their growth prior to Graycroft Dana spent several years as a Venture capitalist and advisor to Startups in the Bay Area including six Years at Mayfield and investment banking At Lehman Brothers let's give him a Round of applause everyone Okay here we go so we're gonna bring out The first company and again like every Other day I need you to bring the energy Clap them out with nice strong energy And we'll get going so from LA California Parallel Health presenting for parallel Health is Nathan Brown and nataliece Robinson give him Round of Applause My name is nataliece kalea Robinson and I'm the co-founder and CEO of parallel Health in the world of Precision Health I don't follow Trends I set them Foreign

You've likely all taken antibiotics at Least once in your life strep throat Stomach infections skin issues Antibiotics have saved Our Lives full Stop but we also know that taking too Many antibiotics can pose a danger to Our health because of side effects and Antimicrobial resistance The World Health Organization says that Antimicrobial resistance is a top 10 Global Health threat to humanity and by 2050 over 10 million people will die From an antibiotic resistant infection Enter parallel a Precision phage Platform utilizing testing with whole Genome sequencing robotics Automation And Big Data machine learning and AI Phages are microbes that infect bacteria They're like antibiotics except they're Natural and they're targeted they're Like precise assassins that kill the bad Bacteria but leave the good bacteria Alone Phages were discovered in the early 1900s and scientists and doctors use Them to treat illnesses like cholera and Dysentery But they didn't have the sequencing Technology that we have today and in the 1920s we the Western world found Antibiotics and they were effective they Killed everything and they were cheap to Produce so we left phage therapy behind But with the rise of antimicrobial

Resistance scientists like those at Parallel have used phage therapy to save Lives under the fda's emergency use Authorization Today parallel has developed a platform That covers and and applies to other Areas of human health we're starting in Skin why dermatologists are the number One prescribers of antibiotics across Healthcare I met my now co-founder Dr Nathan Brown At a skincare startup where we both Worked and we brought to market the First ever phage based serum targeting C Acnis bacteria for acne And here's what we learned in a certain Cohort of people it worked tremendously Well we were able to get people off of Antibiotics and Accutane and yet in Another cohort it didn't hurt them just Nothing happened and so to understand This discrepancy we sequence their skin Microbiome and we learned that in this First cohort these people had an Overgrowth of sea acnes which completely Made sense because rcrm was targeting C Acnes and in the other cohort these People had an overgrowth of other types Of bacteria pseudomonas as Aureus Sometimes it was fungi or even mites and We realized that if we were going to Bring a Precision solution to the market Like phage then we were going to have to Have a test and a ton of data so we

Joined the Illumina accelerator where we Amassed the largest database on the skin Microbiome to date using whole genome Sequencing today I'd like to introduce Our skin microbiome Discovery kit and Our custom phage serums let's pan to the Kiosk where we can see Katie and show You how this works Here is our skin microbiome Discovery Kit unlike others who have only one swab We have four swabs it turns out your Forehead microbiome might be different Than your chin microbiome we also Include a control to control for Microbes in the room Once Katie's done swabbing she's going To send those back to our lab let's go To our Zoom live feed Here we use Automation and Robotics to Prep the sample and then we sequence Unlike others who use a technology Called 16s we use a more advanced Technology called whole genome Sequencing that allows the CC not only Bacteria but also viruses fungi and even Mites We then use a an internal Spike to be Quantitative and then unique bio Algorithms to categorize your skin Microbiome type Our test is so thorough that we can see When you have antibiotic resistance Genes or even viruses that have been Correlated with non-melanoma skin cancer

We can't report on those results just Yet but here's what we can tell you Let's go to demo Here we can see Katie's results you can See her skin microbiome type her skin Age her diversity score hydration levels An outline of good and bad bacteria As well as recommendations on food and Skin Care ingredients and of course her Phage serum let's go back to Presentation Parallel has defined eight different Skin microbiome types And eight different phage formulations Parallel produces its phages by Leveraging our proprietary biobanks of Over 10 000 bacterial phage and fungal Strains and then use high throughput Screening to select the right phages Let's go back to the live feed Here we use bioreactors to produce and Scale the phages at extremely high Tighter which allows us to achieve and Maintain efficacy let's go back to Presentation We have a wait list of over 6 000 people To date five patents and an Loi from a Fortune 500 company to develop novel Ingredients When scale Beyond skin To other areas of human health and Therapeutics parallel projects Revenue Potential of over five billion dollars In 2030. parallels team features

World-class experts across science Medicine Big Data AI engineering and Business We're launching an exclusive preview Here at TechCrunch this week please Visit it please visit us at Parallelhealth.io where you can biohack Your skin thank you Foreign Let's start with you oh well thank you Uh great great presentation and it's an Exciting area for sure and I think your Timing is terrific Um I'm curious though just in terms of The model because they think you know You're launching your first product is The plan that you will exclusively Launch your own products or will you be Enabling Um or ingredients in sort of other Products both actually so we made a Strategic decision in the future that we Needed a lot of data right so we wanted To go and we had a compelling product to Offer to the market so we're going Direct to patient and consumer however We have been approached by cpg companies To develop novel ingredients so and we Have the ability to do that so we're Doing that as well A lot to I mean as a startup it's a lot To take on that's what I'm just I was Curious you know sort of where you're Really going to be focusing your your

Energy so Primarily on your own products primarily Primarily now yes got it but in the Future we see other lines of Revenue Terrific Mark Yeah I'm trying to understand is this Will be a cosmetic or a therapeutic like I think Accutane is really effective and Also really cheap is you get reimbursed Is this are you guys going that route or Is it going Cosmetic route and if it is then what is The cost out of pocket for folks to do This yes so currently we are a Cosmetic Test as well as cosmetic serum so skin Care but we've we've been led by the Data and we absolutely see clinical Applications in the data that we're Seeing as I mentioned we see antibiotic Resistance genes and bacteria viruses That have been associated with Non-melanoma skin cancer so all of this Data really points to therapeutic Applications and clinical applications In the future which we're working Towards in terms of the question around Cost to Consumers we have a starter kit That includes the test and your first Serum it starts at 385 dollars but we Are working on a subscription model Where you're paying 150 to let's say 200 A month where then testing is included And we wanted to to work towards that

One good question what's the margin on That because you have to do the test Thing I don't I mean I know it's going To come down in price but that's right Yeah I'm charging that how much yeah the Margins on the test are fairly slim Um but you know we're trying to get to About 30 to 50 percent depending on Volume but the margins on the skin care Are typical sort of skin care margins Will come that are quite High Charles It's okay I'll do it later can you can You talk to us about the state of the Technology around sequencing and the Formulation and like how much more r d You feel like you need to do there to Get to commercialization Sure yeah I think we're ready to launch So we're going to launch after this uh This event and um uh really the the Sequencing is the enabling technology For phage therapy and it's already there Uh what's really uh driven or enabled This is is the decrease in cost thanks To Illumina and other companies so so That's ready and you can really get Precise Um idea of what's on someone's skin Microbiome with that technology already And so we've really focused on producing The phage and getting those scaled up That's a major challenge that we've Overcome and and we're ready now to

Launch thank you Yeah as a director consumer business how Do you intend on getting distribution For your products So currently of course Direct on website Through Amazon as well but we are Putting together pilot programs with Estheticians Med Spas Durham clinics who Have shown interest in various cities Across the the us to start but we are Looking at that sort of B to b2c model As well Mark I have a quick question do you know How much are the sales of Accutane in The US yearly I don't know I don't have my phone That is a great question I don't know What it's at currently today Um I think it's also muddied by sort of Reimbursement as well so but you could Take that money that's your point right Sure I mean we've we've seen results Where people have been able to get off Of Accutane and so that um that was Really inspiring to us as a cosmetic Product okay Marissa I was wondering if you talk a Little bit about the technology behind The production of the phages because Obviously there's a lot of Technology Around antibiotics how well does that Transfer to you is it totally different And what some of the constraints of Production look like

Yeah that's an important question for us It's been a major Focus we use a Bioreactor as you saw that technology is Established the processes for phage are Different so the phage grow as a Bacteria grow so it's two Dynamic Processes you have to manage fortunately We have advisors who have been working On this for 20 years I've got four years Of experience it is distinct from a Small molecule manufacturing process but It uses some of the same tools so the Technology is there we've developed the Processes in-house and that's part of Our IP is is the secret sauce behind Manufacturing Matthew yeah I was just curious that the On the IP front Um which is it's always nice uh to have Something that nobody else has uh what How much of it is manufacturing how much Of it is in the serum uh can you Describe like kind of the rough shape of Those patents Yeah so there's a few areas that we Patent one is the Um uh the formulation itself of the Phages now phages are natural products You can't patent them But you can pick a patent how you Stabilize them so our products are room Temperature stable for months this is What we would need to go to a cpg Partner and this is what the consumer

Wants on their shelf you don't want to Pull it out of the fridge I don't anyhow So um that's patentable as well as some Of the processes we can set up some Pickets around the processes and we've Been encouraged to do that especially if You're going to Therapeutics that's done Quite often so those are some main areas That we focus on patenting in addition If we do go therapeutic which we are Actively working on at the moment There's genetic engineering technology That we can introduce and we have Patented some novel genetic sequences For for the the phages we're developing For Therapeutics so that's another Aspect another another Mo IP Mo we can Besides branding which you know is all Important sure so thank you Go to Mar and then a moon You can go first okay I think I've been All right uh could you talk about the Capital needs and the capital intensity To scale up production of the first Product So as Nathan mentioned we're we're there Um so to date we've raised 2.3 million Uh we're looking for an additional Um at a minimum 2 million currently on a Safe and we're raising that now Obviously if we go into uh I'll say when We go into Therapeutics or clinical Applications we'll obviously have to Raise a lot more and how much of that

Goes towards just the equipment required To the robotics the actually to make the Products So we've outlaid some of those expenses Already Um so I'd say so of that 2.3 million We've already raised the vast majority Has gone into the technology and r d but Luckily Um you know as we scale it'll decrease And in costs at 30 seconds left and Mara Has one more question okay my question Is you guys are so technical so many Patents and part of the challenge of a Company like yours is you have to go buy Customers right and acquiring is so Expensive you're probably gonna need More than two million dollars to do that Why not like Dana said license your Attack to other people that already have Brand and access to those customers You know you made me a more profitable Business like what was the reasoning Behind that it's a fair question Um and and to to be fair I think when we First started we didn't think we were Going to go into licensing but we were Approached by the cpg company so we said Great we'll do that too yeah let the Market but I think microbiome and what We're introducing in terms of phage is So novel that there is a component of Education that we have to do with the Consumer people know generally have

Heard about the microbiome but I think It's really advantageous for us to be Able to create content and share the Value of of microbiome and Personalization I would just tell you so Expensive to educate the consumer that You really want to rely on other folks To help you you're right no no you're Right we're going to leave it on that Advice all the time thank you so much Give a round of applause appreciate it