Why we invested in Sensible Bio
We met on LinkedIn. As is increasingly the case, some of our best leads come from good old-fashioned ‘swiping’ on profiles that we come across on this much-derided but ultimately irreplaceable professional network site. While both Miro and I struggled to speak our mother tongue and switched between Slovakian and English continuously during our first call, it didn’t take me long to recognise Miro’s exceptional entrepreneurial drive alongside his world-class academic stamps of approval. This was going somewhere!
But not so quickly. Over the ensuing 2+ years (it was lockdown time when we first spoke), I watched Miro and his co-founder Marian navigate through the YC program, going back to the drawing board and working out a pivot, leaning on their angels, getting onboard the first hires, advisors, and industry partners, including Gingko Bioworks, a giant of cell programming (recently announced partnership here). Throughout that entire period, both Miro and Marian continued to impress me with their hyper-activity, hyper-productivity, and ability to listen carefully and learn quickly. I wanted to find a way for KAYA VC to support them despite biotech not being a core focus of what we do.
What problem is Sensible Bio solving?
The unprecedented speed and success of mRNA vaccines to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in using mRNA as a next generation nucleic acid therapy and means of delivering therapeutic proteins. The mRNA therapeutics market alone was estimated at over $40 billion in 2021 and expected to grow to $130 billion by 2030. Each gram of mRNA costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce, placing a very hefty price tag on any large-scale therapeutic that requires kilograms of it. Even more importantly, the current ways of making mRNA just cannot provide mRNA molecules with quality sufficient to unlock its full potential to be used for novel therapeutics — like for cancer drugs and in rare disease treatments.
Sensible Bio is looking to reinvent the current mRNA manufacturing process by producing RNA in living cells. The team is building a platform to produce any mRNA in eukaryotic cells, building up on the core thesis: “more natural mRNA” similar to that which our cells are making will have sufficient quality to unlock full therapeutic potential of this molecule. All that while drastically reducing the cost of manufacturing. The impact of this could be immense and accelerate the progress in preventing and treating various major diseases.
In the end, the whole KAYA VC team was enthusiastic about an investment in Sensible Bio and its leadership team. Through the process, we learned a lot about biotechnology and are very bullish on the sector’s long-term potential. We’re delighted to join a group of seasoned TechBio institutional investors, CEOs of leading biotech startups who are investing as angels, and world-class industrial and academic advisors to support a strong team of over a dozen scientists and bioengineers in Slovakia, UK, and the US.
This investment is a result of KAYA VC’s efforts to invest in promising talent from the CEE region wherever in the world they may be located. Having been part of the CEE diaspora myself for the past 20+ years, I have witnessed first-hand the depth and breadth of this talent pool and we’d love to be able to support them in any way we can.
