It’s often our personal experiences and sometimes devastating events that touch our heart and drive our life’s mission. Such is the case with some of today’s most intriguing healthcare entrepreneurs. Take for example Matt De Silva and Jini Kim. When Matt learned of his father’s diagnosis of stage IV brain cancer with three to six months to live, he was taken aback by the lack of treatments available. And when Jini was a child and the only English speaking member of her family who could fill out complicated medical forms on behalf of her autistic brother, she thought there has to be a better way to navigate our country’s medical system.
Matt De Silva is a driven individual. In a short period of time he has managed to build a medical science platform and laboratory to test how cancer patients will react to experimental treatment. At the same time he’s been captivating sophisticated investors to pour millions into his idea. But perhaps this is not all that surprising given Matt is someone who’s been determined from the start. At Cornell University, Matt was captain of the cross country and track team and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in applied economics and management. Shortly after graduating, he made his way to Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital Management, a top tier investment management firm based out of San Francisco, CA. After two years with Clarium, Matt embarked on his life’s mission – Notable Labs.
Notable Labs was founded in 2014. In a nutshell, the company provides a personalized testing service for cancer patients that prioritizes combinations of FDA-approved treatments that can be immediately prescribed by a doctor without a clinical trial. Its investors include some of Silicon Valley’s most well-known including First Round Capital, Founders Fund and Y Combinator. Recently, B Capital Group and Lifeforce Capital led its Series B Round of $40 million. The company has raised a total of $54 million since inception.
With regards to how the company intends to use its fresh capital, “We’re looking really seriously at locations beyond the U.S. and all our software is cloud-based for that reason,” De Silva said. “Global scale is really important because clinical trials and drugs are not developed in only one geography.”
B Capital, an investment group that seeks to help startups scale faster with corporate partnerships. “In Notable’s particular focus of cancer, the diseases are incredibly complex and patients have multiple clones and variations. There’s no one thing to solve all those cases,” B Capital Principal Adam Seabrook commented. “But by combining the power of software with interesting approaches in biology you can get closer to understanding how to treat diseases like blood cancers.”
With like-minded backers and $40 million in his coffers, Matt De Silva is getting closer to accomplishing his mission and turning what he learned from his father’s experience into life altering solutions for today’s cancer patients.
