Revel Pharmaceuticals Announces $8.4-Million Seed to Develop Repairing-Based Approaches to Reversing Aging

Revel Pharmaceuticals recently announced it has raised $8.4 million in seed financing. The oversubscribed round was led by Kizoo Technology Capital, a leading early stage investor in breakthrough rejuvenation technologies, and Starbloom Capital with participation from Tubus LLC. The funds will support Revel as it advances its repair-based enzyme therapy pipeline toward the clinic.

Today, enzymes are applied therapeutically in only a handful of applications, including for lysosomal storage disorders (Cerezyme), cancer (Asparaginase), and cystic fibrosis (DNase). Revel Pharmaceuticals is reimagining how enzymes can be used as therapeutics by developing repair-based approaches to aging and disease.

One root cause of aging are the toxic chemical byproducts of metabolism that build up on the long-lived collagen proteins giving our bodies structure. These toxic byproducts build up in the body over time, driving inflammation, stiffening tissues, and leading to increased systolic blood pressure, kidney damage, and increased risk of stroke and death. Revel is developing designer enzymes to precisely remove and repair this damage from aging.

“Revel’s enzyme discovery and engineering platform leverages nature’s chemical toolkit – enzymes – to repair collagen,” said Dr. Aaron Cravens, Co-founder and CEO at Revel. “Collagen is the infrastructure of our bodies, supporting cellular function and health. Applying enzymes to repair decades of damage to this infrastructure is a logical way to go about reversing age-related disease. With this funding, we are equipped to drive our therapeutic pipeline toward the clinic and ultimately help patients.”

“Revel is leading innovation in repair-based approaches to aging,” added Patrick Burgermeister, Partner at Kizoo Technology Capital and board member of Revel Pharmaceuticals. “We are thrilled to lead this round and continue supporting the expansion of Revel’s pipeline of enzymatic-repair and crosslink-breakers. The enzyme therapies being developed at Revel will reverse aspects of aging by repairing damage that accumulates as we age.”

Kizoo provides seed and follow-on financing with a focus on rejuvenation biotech. Having been entrepreneurs, VC, and mentors in both high-growth tech and biotech companies for many years – with multiple exits and massive value created for the founders – Kizoo now brings this experience to the emerging field of rejuvenation biotech. We see it as a young industry that will eventually outgrow today’s largest technology markets.

As part of Michael Greve’s Forever Healthy Group, Kizoo directly supports the creation of startups turning research on the root causes of aging into therapies and services for human application. Investments include Cellvie, Underdog, Revel Pharmaceuticals, Elastrin Therapeutics, and others.

Forever Healthy’s other initiatives include the evaluation of new rejuvenation therapies, evidenced-based curation of the world’s cutting-edge medical knowledge, funding research projects on the root causes of aging, and hosting the annual Undoing Aging Conference. For more information, visit www.kizoo.com.

Revel Pharmaceuticals is a biotechnology company located in San Francisco, CA, with a technology platform based on the work of Yale Professors David Spiegel and Jason Crawford. We are commercializing therapeutic designer enzymes to degrade molecular damage that accumulates with aging. By addressing one of the hallmarks of aging, Revel is strategically positioned to develop therapeutics for multiple diseases of aging, including osteoarthritis, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, skin aging, and complications of diabetes. For more information, visit www.revelpharmaceuticals.com.