EpiBiome Accepted into Stanford's StartX Accelerator Program

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., July 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- EpiBiome, a precision microbiome engineering company working to curb the growing threat of multi-drug-resistant "superbugs" by eliminating the use of shared-class antibiotics from agriculture, has been accepted into Stanford's StartX Accelerator Program.

Throughout the highly-competitive, 16-week program—which this year accepted just 8 percent of applicants—EpiBiome will receive mentorship from a community of more than 200 serial entrepreneurs, experts, angels and venture capitalists in a customized educational program designed and delivered to match the founders' needs. Additionally, Stanford will participate in the company's B financing round, and the company will receive more than $400,000 in value from the program's partners—all in exchange for zero equity.

"Every investor in the San Francisco Bay Area is familiar with StartX, and we couldn't be more excited to rejoin the Stanford community and work with those involved on the mentorship side, who have already seen several successful exits," said Dr. Nick Conley, EpiBiome's co-founder and CEO. "Based on how the meetings are diversified between industry-specific and general sessions, we're looking forward to seeing and working with new cross sections of our entrepreneurial community. I feel that we'll be able to gain a significant amount of insight from those outside our particular industry, which we'd miss out on in a purely biotech environment."

StartX is an industry- and stage-agnostic nonprofit organization that seeks to identify promising entrepreneurs in the Stanford University network and help them develop through experiential education, funding and a vast network of both mentors and investors.

"StartX alumni represent some of Stanford's best entrepreneurs in fields from cleantech and biotech to consumer internet and enterprise software," said Joseph Huang, StartX vice president of programs. "When we reviewed EpiBiome's application, we clearly recognized the talent of the team and their vision to change the world and felt that they were a great fit to our current session, which includes a mix of recent grads, late-stage founders and serial entrepreneurs."

In addition to further strengthening EpiBiome's capital formation strategy, StartX represents another addition to the company's growing list of accolades, which includes an invitation to give a TEDMED talk at The Hive 2016, acceptance into Illumina Accelerator and Springboard Accelerator, winning Johnson & Johnson's Innovation QuickFire Challenge, advancing from 480 companies to the final 3 in the 2016 SXSW Accelerator Competition, being selected by BIO 2016 as the "Buzz of BIO" in the "Technologies of Tomorrow" category and securing a Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Grant.

About EpiBiome
EpiBiome is a venture-backed precision microbiome engineering company with the mission of developing effective and sustainable FDA-approved therapies to combat infectious disease in humans and in agriculture without the use of small-molecule antibiotics. Its first product will address bovine mastitis, an inflammation of the udder tissue in dairy cows, usually caused by bacterial infection. Bovine mastitis results in $35 billion and $2 billion in losses to the global and US dairy industries, respectively, due to reduced milk production and milk quality.

The company's management team consists of Nick Conley, PhD (Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer), Aeron Tynes Hammack, PhD (Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer), Christina Tsai, PhD (Co-founder & VP of Asian Business Development), Lucia Mokres, DVM (Chief Medical Officer), and Bruno Marchon, PhD (Chief Technical Officer). EpiBiome is located at 201 Gateway Blvd., South San Francisco. For more information, visit www.epibiome.com.

About StartX
StartX is an industry- and stage-agnostic nonprofit organization that seeks to enhance the success of the highest potential entrepreneurs in the Stanford University network by providing tactical help, experiential education, funding, and a vast network of mentors and investors. For more information, visit http://startx.com/.

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SOURCE EpiBiome

Related Links

http://www.epibiome.com