NEW YORK – IndyGeneUS announced late last week the first close of a $2 million pre-seed funding round to help advance its personalized health risk assessment software for underserved populations.
Participants in the pre-seed funding round included healthcare investors Adaeze Enekwechi, Mike Meng, and Nathalie Walton. Washington, D.C.-based IndyGeneUS said it will use the funding to onboard additional members of its service offering, support customers and strategic partners, and scale its technology.
Concurrently, IndyGeneUS launched the first version of its GeneUS software for genetics-based health risk assessment for underserved populations. The app contains a free personalized health risk assessment for individuals who sign up on the company's website.
The company is working with HelaPlex to sequence thousands of genomes in Africa and in the African diaspora to build a genomic repository they hope will lead to pharmaceuticals and biologics that are less Eurocentric than current offerings. Its first product offering will focus on improving health outcomes for Black and Brown people, women, and Veterans, the company said.
Enekwechi, former White House Office of Management and Budget Health Director during the Obama Administration, noted in a statement that the company "aims to address health disparities by addressing long-known problems in prevention, disease identification, drug development, and treatment. Effectively addressing these problems can only occur if we have a genetically diverse data bank like the one IndyGeneUS Health is building."
Last month, IndyGeneUS acquired genetic cryptocurrency creator EncrypGen for an undisclosed amount.