Healthcare · Boston
Helix Bio
Designed proteins for diseases too rare to attract pharma.
- Stage
- Series B
- Founded
- Founded 2018
- First invested
- We invested 2019
- Team
- 95 people
- Board
- Board seat
- Total raised
- $62M
- Current stage
- Series B
- Team
- 95
- Founded
- 2018
What they build
The product, in plain terms
Helix Bio builds designed proteins for diseases too rare to attract pharma. The company started in Boston in 2018. We backed it at seed and have worked with the team through Series B.
- 01
Clinical workflows built with the people who use them, tested in a real setting before a single sales call.
- 02
Evidence generated on purpose. Studies, outcomes, published results, not testimonials.
- 03
Integrations with the record systems that already run the building, because nothing gets adopted beside them.
Where it stands
Numbers the team watches
Reported by the company at its most recent board meeting. We publish what founders are comfortable publishing and nothing more.
- Patients covered
- 15K
- Clinician retention
- 82%
- Time to first result
- 1 weeks
Why we invested
The note from the first meeting
“We met Helix Bio in 2019, back when sales cycles ran in quarters and trust was the only thing that shortened them. They were building the boring half of the product first, which almost nobody does, and it made the rest of the roadmap credible.”
- Went from prototype to paid pilot in a single quarter.
- Signed its first design partner before the program ended.
- Shipped the enterprise tier without hiring a single sales engineer.
Founders
Who is building it
Both founders were in the room the day we wrote the check, and both still run the company.
Marcus Petrova
Co-founder and CEO
Spent six years as a customer of the tools they now compete with.
Sofia Cohen
Co-founder and CTO
Ran the team that owned this problem inside a company large enough to feel it properly.
Timeline
How it has gone
The version we would give another investor, including the years where nothing looked like progress.
- 2018
Founded
Marcus Petrova and Sofia Cohen start Helix Bio in Boston around a single wedge: designed proteins for diseases too rare to attract pharma.
- 2019
We invested
We wrote the seed check and took a board seat. David Chen has worked with the team ever since.
- 2020
Paid customers
Contracts replaced pilots, and the company stopped selling a roadmap and started selling a product.
- 2021
Series B round
Raised at $480M, led by an investor we introduced during diligence. We took our full pro rata.
- 2026
Where it stands
95 people, selling in more markets than it started in, still run by the two people who wrote the first version.
Alongside us
Co-investors
We share rounds with people we would want on our own cap table.
- Bessemer
- Index Ventures
- Costanoa
- Craft Ventures
Working here
Open roles
Helix Bio is hiring in these areas. Mention us and the note gets to the founders directly.
- Clinical operations
- Regulatory
- Health system sales
Building something next to Helix Bio?
We are usually early to a category and happy to be early again. Send us the short version.