Cyrus featured in Geekwire
Cyrus raised $8M in a series A financing round. Geekwire talked with Cyrus CEO Lucas Nivon about the positive implications of this funding for the future of Cyrus.
OUR GOALS
Scientific Excellence
Cyrus was founded by scientists and driven by our desire to constantly be at the leading edge of computational biology, with experimentally proven computational tools, like homology modeling. This means that we implement algorithms from a variety of sources, starting with the Rosetta software toolkit and its associated software dependencies, and that we focus on constant methodological improvement and rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific benchmarking.
Operational Excellence
Cyrus is committed to providing the most powerful and reliable bio-molecular computation resource available. We partner with industry-leading firms to provide vast amounts of compute, high uptime, data security, and efficient use of computational resources for our customers. Our team is up-to-the-minute on modern cloud operations, and we are passionate about continued improvement as these tools and resources develop.
User Success
The most powerful algorithms and hundreds of thousands of computers are useless without a set of support resources to help our customers achieve their scientific goals. Our ultimate aim is not only to provide a beautiful rosetta interface, but to create customer success by delivering powerful and delightful tools and supporting their use.
Cyrus was created in part to provide these support resources efficiently and professionally. That means a custom-designed GUI, instructional videos, telephone support, and on-site coaching by industry-leading scientists. Your scientific success — solving new protein structures, creating more active mutants, designing novel protein binding activities, and more — is our goal.
Lucas Nivon
Chief Executive Officer
Lucas is trained in computational biophysics and protein engineering. Prior to Cyrus he was a Translational Investigator & Senior Fellow at the Baker lab at UW, developing small-molecule binding proteins and protein design algorithms. Lucas is the founder of PedalAnywhere, a national bike rental startup. Lucas’ scientific work includes a patented computationally designed enzyme, an RNA-dynamics-modeling software toolkit, and algorithm optimization for automation of computational protein design. Harvard A.B., Biochemical Sciences (summa cum laude and Goldwater Scholar) and Ph.D., Biophysics; Hertz Fellow.
Yifan Song
Chief Science Officer
Yifan has been at the forefront of computational protein modeling and biophysics in a variety of fields. Yifan was the lead developer on core Rosetta protein modeling functionality, and the project manager at CCNY for an electrostatics calculation software package, MCCE. He pioneered a number of technical refinements in protein structure energy evaluation currently used in Rosetta. Yifan is a leader in computational protein modeling, with experience ranging from ab initio protein structure prediction to crystallography to protein-protein interaction design and over 20 scientific publications in leading journals. He is a former Translational Investigator & Research Scientist at the Baker lab at the University of Washington. Yifan completed a B.S. in Physics at Fudan University and earned his Ph.D. in Physics at CCNY.
Javier Castellanos
Chief Technical Officer
Javier has over 10 years of experience in scientific software development, with deep expertise in Python, C++, High-performance computing, and cloud infrastructure. Prior to Cyrus he was a Translational Investigator at the UW IPD and a Graduate Student UW’s Baker lab. His scientific research was in computational protein design, focusing on the creation of non-natural protein scaffolds. Javier designed software pipeline tools for protein design broadly used in the Baker lab for distributing computing jobs across a large infrastructure. Javier built the Cyrus prototype software deployment. Javier earned his Bachelors in Biochemistry at the University of Chile and his Ph.D. in Biomolecular Structure and Design at UW.
David Baker
Scientific Co-Founder & Advisor
David is a Professor at the University of Washington and an HHMI Investigator. David is the originator of the Rosetta software package and is responsible for numerous scientific breakthroughs and “firsts” in computational modeling of protein structures and design of novel proteins. Highlights include:
1) The first reliable prediction of small-protein 3D structures.
2) The design of the first fully de novo protein structure in a computer.
3) The design of the first protein-protein binding interactions in a computer
4) The creation of a specific ligand-binding protein by computational methods.
5) David has published over 330 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including over 20 in Science and Nature alone.
Rosario Caltabiano
Executive VP of Sales
Rosario is a fervent customer advocate and successful professional with a high level of integrity. He brings over fifteen years of experience in sales and management with a consistent and successful growth track record, having worked in small and large companies, including Accelrys, IBM, and Interactive Supercomputing. His strong focus on bringing computationally intensive, scientific software to R&D organizations is a winning formula for Cyrus Biotechnology and its valued customers.
At Accelrys, a leading provider of enterprise scientific software to the Biotech, Chemical and Pharmaceutical industries, Rosario more than doubled his business in just three years, and was the top performer company-wide in 2012. At Interactive Supercomputing, a start-up offering parallel computing software, Rosario’s team acquired 50 new US customers in just two years. At IBM, Alliant Computer Systems and SGI, Rosario had strong exposure to in-silico molecular simulation software and collaborated with scientists and researchers in various technical and sales roles.
He earned a Master’s Degree, Summa Cum Laude, in Electrical Engineering from Universita` degli Studi di Napoli, Italy.
Chad Waite
Board Member
Chad is a Managing Director at OVP Venture Partners, where he has raised seven funds, with $750M currently under management. Chad has 28 years of experience investing across sectors as diverse as IT, clean tech, and digital biology. The firm has invested in over 130 companies, with 53 exits, including 23 IPOs. Notable successes include WatchGuard, Seattle Genetics, and Rosetta Inpharmatics.
Chad‘s additional investments include Accelerator, Adapx, Airgo Networks, Boston Beer, CellPro, Complete Genomics, Corixa, Loudeye Technologies, NanoString, SignalSoft, Verdezyne, Verity. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Adapx, NanoString, NexGenia, Talyst and Verdezyne. Prior to joining OVP in 1987, Chad was a General Partner at Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners where he focused on investments in IT and life sciences. Prior to H&Q, he was in marketing and sales management at Cobe Laboratories, Inc. in its cardiovascular medical products division. Chad is a member of the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) BSIF Advisory Board and a member of the University of Washington’s Technology Transfer Advisory Board.
Gus Tai
Board Member
Gus Tai is a general partner at Trinity Ventures, where he specializes in funding early-stage companies and supporting entrepreneurs at the time of company formation. A Forbes Midas List recipient, Gus has backed a number of pioneering companies including Blue Nile (IPO), Bulletproof Coffee, Callisto Media, Markforged, 10% Happier, MaxPoint (IPO), Photobucket (acquired by Fox Interactive Media), Trion Worlds, Truaxis (acquired by MasterCard) and Zulily (IPO). Gus holds a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University and a MS and MBA from MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Sloan School of Management, respectively.
Eric Bell
Board Member
Eric is Managing Director of SpringRock Ventures. Before co-founding SpringRock, Eric headed the health care investment effort for the Invention Development Fund at Intellectual Ventures (IV). Prior to IV, Eric had spent most of his career in venture capital; he was an investment professional responsible for early and mid-stage health care investments at Vulcan Capital and at Tredegar Investments. Eric has also been Director of Business Development with Corixa Corporation, a biotechnology company in Seattle, WA. Prior to business school, Eric had worked for a start-up medical device company developing a home hemodialysis machine, Aksys, Ltd. (AKSY). Eric has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Eric Larsen
Board Observer
Eric Larsen is an experienced entrepreneur and executive in finance, technology, and business operations. He began his career at Andersen Consulting, led the technology team at Quellos , and subsequently held a senior role in the Aladdin Product Group at BlackRock. He is currently an active investor and Entrepreneur in Residence at the UW. He works as an advisor with emerging Northwest companies seeking to scale and has led multiple fund raising rounds.
At Quellos he built the world-class research, operations and customer management system Quasar, a key strategic advantage for Quellos, scaling from 17 employees with $324M in assets to 350 employees and $25B. He also led Financial Risk Management and advised emerging hedge funds via Quellos Financial Ventures. BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world with over $4 trillion in AUM, acquired Quellos’ hedge fund business in 2007 and Eric lead the development of Quasar into BlackRock’s internal core Aladdin CRM with over 5000 users. At BlackRock Eric served on the Global Operating Committee, oversaw the global redesign of BlackRock’s websites, and launched the Client Analytics group in 2014.
Eric earned CFA designation in 2001, his MBA with honors in Finance from DePaul University, and his undergraduate degree at University of Illinois in Electrical Engineering.
Carl Gordon
Board Observer
Carl L. Gordon, Ph.D., CFA, is a founding Partner and Co-Head of Global Private Equity at OrbiMed. He was a senior biotechnology analyst at Mehta and Isaly from 1995 to 1997. He was a Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1993 to 1995. Carl received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1993) and a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Harvard College (1987). Carl was included on the Forbes Midas List of top venture capital investors in 2014.