10x Science
The AI-native platform for next-generation protein characterization.
Verdict
This is one of the stronger deep-science teams in the batch: Roberts and Reiter have rare, legitimate domain expertise from Bertozzi's Nobel lab with the publications and citations to prove it, and Tejus provides real production engineering credibility as Nooks' founding engineer — not a generalist AI wrapper builder. The problem is real and urgent: AI drug discovery is creating a characterization bottleneck that current legacy tools can't solve. The main risks are that the product is still in early access with no named customers or revenue disclosed, and incumbents like Protein Metrics and Thermo Fisher have deep pharma relationships. The team's ability to publish in Cell Chemical Biology while simultaneously shipping software is a strong velocity signal. Watch for whether they can convert from academic early adopters to paying pharma development teams.
Active Founders
Chemistry postdoc and Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow in Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi's lab (2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) at Stanford University. Next-generation scientific leader in chemical biology and glycobiology with 1450+ citations & h-index 21. Received my B.S. double major in chemistry & mathematics at UC San Diego (2016) and Ph.D. in materials chemistry & analytical chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2023).
Previously received my B.S. in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill. I then joined Dr. Steven Carr’s Proteomics Platform Lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where I developed new methods in mass spectrometry. I later became a Ph.D. student and NSF-GRFP fellow in the Department of Biology at Stanford University, where I was co-advised by Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi (2022 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) and Dr. Or Gozani.
I am a 2x YC Founder. Previously, I built AI for go-to-market teams as the 2nd hire and founding engineer at Nooks. Then, I forward deployed myself in research labs at the University of Washington, UCSF, and Stanford, where I was mentored by world-renowned scientists in analytical chemistry and cancer research. In < 1 year, I published 2 papers and won 4 national awards. Now, I'm building ultrafast AI models for drug discovery teams to characterize proteins and pharmaceutical candidates.