Navigating the tech ecosystem as an international founder

Giovanni Stracquadaneo
Nov 5 · 3 min read

How an accelerator catapulted our startup into the U.S. market

Every year on February 29, the world comes together to raise awareness for World Rare Diseases Day in hopes of encouraging researchers and policy makers to address the needs of those suffering from rare diseases. Of those advocates, one individual went beyond raising awareness and decided to found a company that allows doctors to quickly and efficiently recognize and cure rare diseases.

That one individual is my co-founder, Simone Gardini. Like many families in Italy and around the world, Simone had personally experienced having a family member suffer from a rare disease, understanding the struggle of not knowing the diagnosis or learning that there is no cure. To help his community and the rest of the 300 million people in the world who suffer from one of the 7000 types of rare diseases, Simone reached out to me with the idea to integrate computer technologies with biomedical research, creating the basis of our company GenomeUp.

We began our work in Italy, where over 2 million individuals suffer from rare diseases. We entered the LuissEnLabs in the LVenture Group acceleration program where we finished prototyping our AI system and began testing clinical protocols in Italy. After our program we realized that we had taken full advantage of Italy’s research centers on rare diseases and successful trials, and it was time to make a larger impact in the world: scale and enter into the U.S. market.

During that time, we discovered the GIP Program at Berkeley SkyDeck and instantly felt it was the perfect path for us to take after LuissEnlabs. We applied and were thrilled to be selected to be a GIP Team.

Week 2 at Berkeley SkyDeck: I pitch to SkyAdvisors and Mentors

The three months we spent at Berkeley SkyDeck turned into a whirlwind of constant activity and in particular, lots of growth.

After a successful round at SkyDeck, we can say that Berkeley SkyDeck taught us all the interdisciplinary skills, such as business management and market strategy, needed to succeed in scaling a business and entering a new market. Their developmental workshops, networking sessions and advisor office hours was the perfect track for our founders and company to grow. For international founders looking for a real launchpad into the U.S. market, I can’t recommend a better program to go to.

Giovanni during the GIP’s Show Case at UC SkyDeck Berkeley

Today, GenomeUp is a platform supporting and streamlining doctors’ diagnosis of rare genetic diseases. By taking in patients’ genetic data, our A.I. technology formulates a detailed clinical report on genes affecting patients’ pathology and suggests a personalized treatment through integrating information from PubMed. Our goal is to ultimately equip doctors with all the information needed to allow for efficient diagnosis and precise treatments, reducing the average waiting period of diagnosis from 8 years to 24 hours.

Giovanni Stracquadaneo

Written by

Co-Founder at GenomeUp

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