In 2017, three passionate scientists—Molly He, Michael Previte, and Matthew Kellinger—came together because they had a dream to democratize access to genomic sequencing and advanced biological tools.
That dream wasn’t easy to realize at first.
“I grew up in China and there is a saying about newborn calves who are not afraid of tigers,” said Molly He, CEO and co-founder of Element Biosciences. “In retrospect, we felt like the newborn calves, a bit naive on how difficult it is to build a company. But we didn’t shy away from it.”
The group’s drive and fearlessness paid off. By June 2019, Element Biosciences completed Series A financing. Less than a year later, the startup had Series B financing. And by June 2021, it would close a $276 million Series C financing, helping them deliver on their promise of increasing access to affordable, high-quality genomic sequencing.
An elemental approach to the startup’s success
In 2022, Element Biosciences launched its first product, the AVITI™, a DNA benchtop sequencing platform powered by avidite base chemistry (ABC), which increased access to genomic sequencing in labs all over the world.
The AVITI platform allows a range of industries—from academia to biotech, cancer research and agriculture—to conduct sophisticated genomic research in-house, reducing dependence on external sequencing facilities and speeding up research, collaboration and scientific discoveries.
Over the past seven years, the company grew from three employees to 320. Molly attributes part of this success to what she calls a first-principles approach.
“When we start to build a company we often lean on experiences from the past,” Molly said. “That’s good, but you can often be restricted by those past experiences if you're keeping them front and center in a new situation. If you're going to create the next iteration of an industry, you need to come at this process from the perspective of 'New.' It’s important to build everything from the ground up.”
By adopting this method, one can think outside the box, Molly said. It’s also the basis for the company’s identity.
“The name ‘Element’ came out of the idea that we wanted to do everything with the first-principles basis, and create all these technical elements from the ground up,” Molly said.
Finding chemistry with J.P. Morgan
“What’s so interesting about Molly and Element Biosciences is that Molly is a scientist by background,” said Elizabeth Weikes, a managing director at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. “It’s very rare that you have a scientist CEO, let alone a female scientist CEO. In one of the first meetings I had with Molly, we really connected as women in the workplace.”
Molly said those shared values and experiences encouraged her to think more deeply about her role as a female founder in the life sciences sector.
“To be honest, I never thought I had the benefit of being a female founder until I started to interact with J.P. Morgan. That struck me as an epiphany, that I do have something to offer society, and it came from a conversation I had with people at J.P. Morgan.”
—Molly He, CEO and Co-Founder of Element Biosciences
‘Pushing the boundary of innovation’
In 2024, Element Biosciences raised more than $277 million in Series D funding to continue its work.
The company, Molly said, is creating a culture of continued learning and is focused on finding people who are never satisfied with the status quo.
“We have a saying in the company. It’s ‘Always be learning. Always be growing,’” said Molly. “We have a really strong team consistently pushing the boundary of innovation.”
The future of the company has been on Molly’s mind since day one. When Element Biosciences started, the company’s founders knew it wasn’t going to be limited to DNA sequencing. As the technology develops, the equipment can help customers study the molecular components that form and act upon DNA.
“DNA is one piece of the puzzle, but there are proteins, epigenetics and all the different things that come together,” Molly said. “When we made the innovation, we already thought ahead to looking at the proteins. We built these instruments to be future-proof.”
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