OZETTE RAISES $6M SEED ROUND FOR AI-POWERED IMMUNE MONITORING PLATFORM Cutting edge science developed at Fred Hutch and AI2 fundamentally changes how scientists discover therapeutics and treat patients, making personalized medicine a reality

Ozette, creators of a cutting edge artificial intelligence-powered Immune Monitoring Platform, today announced $6 million in seed financing led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2) and Vulcan Capital. Ozette, a collaboration between the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and AI2, will use the seed funding to accelerate breakthroughs in treating disease.



The co-founders of Ozette include Scientific Founder Raphael Gottardo and Chief Technology Officer Greg Finak, who are recognized leaders in single-cell analysis and who have taken a crucial step in biomarker and drug discovery research, driving new therapies.



“We’ve spent a decade working at Fred Hutch to catalyze high-dimensional computational single-cell analysis in academia and industry. Today we can see the composition of the immune system at a much higher resolution,” said Greg Finak, Co-Founder and CTO at Ozette. “This deeper level of insight is critical to developing effective disease treatments with fewer side effects and that is something everyone can feel good about.”



WHY OZETTE MATTERS

Ozette’s Immune Monitoring Platform enables scientists to quickly extract reliable insights from single-cell data across instruments, experiments and disease states. Having this fully annotated data allows interpretable results for critical decision-making that will improve patient care and patient outcomes.



Ultimately, Ozette will revolutionize the next phase of medicine by:

• Providing the platform to empower scientists who are working with single-cell data.
• Automating the manual, labor-intensive process of cell analysis from months of work to just hours.
• Unlocking personalized medicine through targeted therapies based on the profiles of individuals’ immune systems.



“What Ozette is delivering to science and medicine is game-changing because it sheds light on the entire cell profile of the immune system, not just only a small percentage of it,” said Matt McIlwain, Managing Director at Madrona. “Ozette brings together the power of computational biology and data science to the life sciences by building a platform that researchers, academics, and biopharmaceutical companies are able to leverage to find treatments faster than ever before.”



“Think of the Ozette Immune Monitoring Platform like an MRI for the immune system,” said Dr. Ali Ansary, Co-Founder and CEO of Ozette. “Where an MRI shows detailed images around the anatomical structures, our technology delivers a high-resolution view of the immune system at the single-cell level, providing details that haven’t been visible before. This makes treatments safer, faster to develop and personalized for patients.”



“At AI2 we are constantly looking for scientific potential in artificial intelligence that has the power to improve daily lives, and Ozette does just that,” said Professor Oren Etzioni, CEO of AI2. “Ozette’s Immune Monitoring Platform is exactly what scientists and researchers have been looking for. By allowing organizations to make discoveries faster, and with less risk, it will transform how we interact with medicine.”



For more information about Ozette, please visit www.ozette.ai or follow Ozette on Twitter and LinkedIn.



About Ozette

Ozette is a Seattle-based life-sciences data spin-out founded in 2020 and incubated at AI2. Ozette is building a groundbreaking high-resolution immune monitoring platform powered by innovative technologies developed at the Fred Hutch. Ozette’s founders include Fred Hutch scientists Raphael Gottardo, Greg Finak and Evan Greene, who have helped pioneer single-cell computational analysis over the past decade, along with physician and entrepreneur Ali Ansary.

About the Allen Institute for AI (AI2)

AI2 was founded in 2014 with the singular focus of conducting high-impact research and engineering in the field of artificial intelligence, all for the common good. AI2 is the creation of Paul Allen, Microsoft co-founder, and is led by Dr. Oren Etzioni, a leading researcher in the field of AI. AI2 employs more than 100 top-notch researchers and engineers from across the globe. AI2 prides itself on the diversity and collaboration of our team and takes a results-oriented approach to complex challenges in AI. Learn more at allenai.org.



About Madrona

Madrona (www.madrona.com) is a venture capital firm based in Seattle, WA. With more than 25 years of investing in early-stage technology companies, the firm has worked with founders from Day One to help build their company for the long run. Madrona invests predominantly in seed and Series A rounds across the information technology spectrum, and in 2018 raised the first fund dedicated to initial investments in acceleration stage (Series B and C stages) companies. Madrona manages over $2 billion and was an early investor in companies such as Amazon, Smartsheet, Isilon, Redfin, and Snowflake.



About Vulcan Capital

Vulcan Capital is the multi-billion-dollar investment arm of Vulcan Inc., the company founded by Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen. Vulcan Capital is focused on generating long-term value appreciation across a portfolio which spans diverse industry sectors and investment asset classes, ranging from early-stage venture investments to public equity value investing, leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, special situations and fixed income. Vulcan Capital was formed in 2003 and is headquartered in Seattle with additional offices in Palo Alto and Singapore.