RALEIGH – Gemelli Biotech Corp. has raised $19 million in funding in a Series A round led by Blue Ox Healthcare Partners.
And Carolina Angel Network participated in the deal as well, along with the company’s founding investor Cedars-Sinai, CerraCap Ventures, and several family offices, according to the company’s statement.
The Raleigh- and Los Angeles-based biotech firm will use the capital to “accelerate the commercialization” of two diagnostic tests, according to its statement.
And, the firm may also “scale-up” laboratory and manufacturing capacity and the company’s operational footprints in Raleigh and L.A., it noted in the statement.
“Funding will accelerate commercialization of Gemelli’s trio-smart and ibs-smart precision diagnostic tests for IBS and SIBO and its strategies for gastrointestinal discoveries related to the microbiome,” a LinkedIn post from the company reads.
Those two diagnostic tests are designed to provide “a more complete picture of gut health” and to identify post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, both of which were developed in partnership through a program at founding investor Cedars-Sinai.
Gemelli Biotech was founded in 2018. Gemelli Biotech is currently hiring a business development executive with responsibility for the southeastern region, according to its website.
A springboard for growth
The company’s founder and CEO, Matt Mitcho, earned an MBA at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan Flagler Business School. Mitcho is based in the Triangle, is a former product manager at GlaxoSmithKline, brand director at Salix Pharmaceuticals, and an executive at Valeant Pharmaceuticals, according to a LinkedIn profile.
“Shortly after founding a health care startup, Gemelli Biotech, I was introduced to the Carolina Angel Network by the Council of Entrepreneurial Development,” Mitcho told Shellie Edge, a reporter who wrote about the Carolina Angel Network’s first five years in January. “I immediately forged a close relationship with Randy Myer and Chelsea Eshraghi, who became powerful advocates for Gemelli.”
According to Edge’s reporting, that advocacy resulted an early financial investment in the company, but also assisted the firm by connecting it to a wider network.
“To support our growth, CAN invested early in our convertible note and also followed on in our Series A raise,” Mitcho told Edge for the story. “Additionally, they connected us to UNC students and professors focused on entrepreneurship, which valuably expanded our intellectual network. At Gemelli, we’re grateful for the continued benefits our relationship with CAN has to offer, and we’re inspired by the impact CAN has on UNC’s startup community as a whole.”
