Altitude Lab Announces $154 Million in Early-Stage Funding for Incubating Startups and Inaugural Gibson Founder Fellowship Awarded

Altitude Lab announces $154 million raised by startups, launches Gibson Fellowship for early-career scientists, and opens new applications.

Quiver AI Summary

Altitude Lab announced that its startups have raised a total of $154 million in early-stage funding since its inception in 2020. The organization, founded by Recursion to support life science entrepreneurs in Utah, provides essential resources, such as laboratories and mentorship, to foster innovation. They have granted the inaugural Gibson Founder Fellowship to Carmen Kivisild, CEO of Elnora AI, aimed at helping early-career scientists accelerate their startup growth with financial and scientific support. Altitude Lab's current cohort includes 19 startups, with 70% led by underrepresented founders and 90% having secured funding. The program is positioned to support further funding rounds in 2025, with applications for new cohorts and fellowships now open.

Potential Positives

Altitude Lab's incubating startups have raised $154 million in early-stage funding since 2020, highlighting the effectiveness of its support system for life science entrepreneurs.
The inaugural Gibson Founder Fellowship awarded to Carmen Kivisild, CEO of Elnora AI, provides early-career scientists with substantial funding and mentorship, enhancing the reputation and attractiveness of Altitude Lab.
90% of participating startups have successfully raised capital, indicating a strong success rate and viability for companies within Altitude Lab.
Anticipation of a wave of Series A funding rounds in 2025 suggests growth and continued investment interest in Altitude Lab's startups, strengthening its position in the biotech ecosystem.

Potential Negatives

Despite the successful fundraising announcement, there may be concerns about the sustainability and long-term success of the startups within Altitude Lab, as early-stage funding can be volatile and subject to market conditions.
The press release does not provide specific details on the current financial health or track record of the startups, potentially raising questions about their viability in the competitive biotech space.
The expectation of a "wave of Series A funding rounds" without proven prior success in such rounds may point to over-optimism, which can reflect poorly on the credibility of the incubator's projections.

FAQ

What is Altitude Lab's mission?

Altitude Lab aims to support diverse life science entrepreneurs in Utah by providing laboratory space, funding, and mentorship.

How much funding have Altitude Lab startups raised?

Altitude Lab's startups have collectively raised $154 million in early-stage funding since its launch in 2020.

What is the Gibson Founder Fellowship?

The Gibson Founder Fellowship provides early-career scientists with up to $150,000 in funding and mentorship to grow their startups.

How can entrepreneurs apply to Altitude Lab?

Applications for residency and the Founder Fellowship can be submitted through Altitude Lab's website at altitudelab.org.

What notable achievements have Altitude Lab startups reached?

Notable achievements include successful funding rounds and regulatory approvals, such as IND approval for Rebel Medicine's Alevatrix.

Disclaimer: This is an AI-generated summary of a press release distributed by GlobeNewswire. The model used to summarize this release may make mistakes. See the full release here.

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$RXRX insiders have traded $RXRX stock on the open market 28 times in the past 6 months. Of those trades, 0 have been purchases and 28 have been sales.

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CHRISTOPHER GIBSON (Chief Executive Officer) has made 0 purchases and 12 sales selling 240,000 shares for an estimated $1,679,000.
MICHAEL SECORA (Chief Financial Officer) has made 0 purchases and 6 sales selling 90,000 shares for an estimated $606,864.
BLAKE BORGESON has made 0 purchases and 7 sales selling 80,129 shares for an estimated $543,442.
TINA MARRIOTT (President and COO) has made 0 purchases and 3 sales selling 18,000 shares for an estimated $125,235.

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Full Release

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 18, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Altitude Lab announced that its incubating startups have collectively raised $154 million in early-stage funding since its launch in 2020. Founded by Recursion, Altitude Lab supports diverse life science entrepreneurs in Utah by providing fully equipped laboratories, access to investors, business operations education, and a collaborative founder community.
In addition, Altitude Lab awarded its inaugural Gibson Founder Fellowship to Carmen Kivisild, Ph.D., CEO and founder of Elnora AI . The fellowship provides early-career scientists with up to $150,000 in funding, scientific support, and mentorship to accelerate the growth of their startups.
“Elnora AI is capturing real-world experimental data directly from academic researchers—positive, negative, and everything in between. This enables our AI-powered lab protocol optimizer, helping researchers get their experiments working faster while building the most comprehensive dataset for drug discovery,” said Kivisild. “The Gibson Fellowship gave us critical funding and an anchor community as we relocated from Estonia to Utah. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be mentored by Chris Gibson, Recursion’s CEO and founder, while rapidly scaling Elnora at Altitude Lab.”
Applications for the 2025 Gibson Founder Fellowship are now open.
“In 2025, we anticipate a wave of Series A funding rounds from our alumni and broader founder community,” said Chandana Haque, executive director of Altitude Lab. “Our founders achieved major value inflection points in 2024, and we are thrilled to see them continue scaling.”

Key Milestones from Altitude Lab’s Portfolio:

19 startups in Altitude Lab’s current cohort and 12 alumni
70% of startups are led by at least one underrepresented founder
90% of all participating startups have raised capital
Peel Therapeutics completed a Phase 1 trial for its PEEL-224 TOP1 inhibitor and closed the first tranche of its Series A
Rebel Medicine received IND approval for Alevatrix and closed the first tranche of its Series A
Sethera established Dr. Robert Langer, MIT faculty and co-founder of Moderna, as chair of their Scientific Advisory Board
Teiko launched a 25-marker spectral flow cytometry assay on fixed whole blood, combining high-throughput immune measurement of ~150 populations with extended stability for global clinical trials.

Applications to join Altitude Lab’s newest cohort are now open. Learn more and apply for residency and the Founder Fellowship at altitudelab.org .

About Altitude Lab
Altitude Lab is building a new, representative generation of founders to seed the next cycle of health care innovation in Utah’s BioHive. Currently located in Gateway’s BioHive Hub in Salt Lake City, Altitude Lab is an accelerator program focused on early stage life science and health care companies. The initiative is part of a larger city plan and collaborative vision from Recursion to foster socially-responsible entrepreneurship, job creation, and economic productivity. The Recursion Foundation, under which Altitude Lab operates, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
Learn more at altitudelab.org or connect on X .
About Recursion
Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX) is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to radically improve lives. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously generate one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.
Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal, New York, London, Oxford area, and the San Francisco Bay area. Learn more at recursion.com , or connect on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn .