Featured Startup Investment Opportunities (Fall 2025)

Below is a preview of the 16 Columbia startups that will present at our 2025 Pitch Day. The first nine startups below are life science-related; the last seven are in physical science and engineering. As a reminder, you can peruse all 1000+ available technologies by keyword or faculty member here.

If any of these projects sound interesting to you, please email [email protected] for an introduction to the team:

TRACK 1 (Therapeutics, Diagnostics, Devices, HCIT, and Genomics)

  • CAST Therapeutics: CAST Therapeutics is pioneering a new class of gene therapy based on CRISPR-associated transposases (CASTs), programmable enzymes that can integrate entire genes into precise genomic locations without creating DNA damage, developed in the labs of Dr. Sam Sternberg and Dr. David Liu. Unlike traditional gene therapy approaches that rely on viral vectors or error-prone DNA repair pathways, CASTs enable efficient, accurate, and seamless insertion of large DNA payloads directly into a patient’s genome. Using phage-assisted continuous evolution, CAST Therapeutics has engineered evolved CAST variants (‘evoCASTs’) that achieve robust integration in human cells — including primary fibroblasts — at efficiencies more than 200-fold greater than natural systems, while maintaining high specificity and product purity. This technology has been demonstrated across multiple clinically relevant loci and with therapeutic-sized cDNA cargos, including genes implicated in cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, and other monogenic disorders. By overcoming the limitations of existing gene editing tools, CAST Therapeutics aims to deliver “Gene Therapy 2.0”: broadly applicable, mutation-agnostic treatments that restore healthy gene function for patients with genetic diseases.
  • NebulEASE: NebulEASE is a revolutionary pocket-sized delivery platform and natural formula that uniquely targets treatment directly to the vocal folds for restoration, preservation, and optimization of the voice for the 50 million professional voice users in the United States, including teachers, lawyers, singers, executives, and customer service agents. This OTC device delivers targeted treatment over only 30 seconds, and it is faster, more convenient and effective than lozenges, sprays, and nebulizers. Developed by one of the world’s leading laryngologists/professional voice doctors, NebulEASE reflects a deep understanding of voice science, current treatment limitations, and the unmet needs of those who rely on their voices professionally.
  • NOVAJoint: NOVAJoint is a regenerative implant company focused on restoring native joint function through implanting biologic living joint replacements. NOVAKnee is its first product focused on total knee arthroplasty (TKA), aiming to reduce the number of surgical procedures and injections required during a patient’s lifetime by leveraging a patient’s native biology. NOVAKnee is an entirely resorbable (e.g., no permanent fixation), non-immunogenic, chondroinductive, osteoinductive knee replacement, and will recapitulate native tissue properties available as both an allogenic and autologous solution. It will expand the market for TKAs, enabling younger patients previously excluded from a traditional metal & plastic knee to restore native functionality through the living NOVAKnee. This solution will change the landscape of joint replacement and become the new standard of care for musculoskeletal joint replacement procedures. In partnership with Columbia University and ARPA-H, NOVAJoint has received $15M of non-dilutive funding and is currently raising $8M in seed funding to establish scaled manufacturing, support clinical trials, and continue engagement with the FDA.
  • PROscope: PROscope is a non-invasive, objective diagnostic software tool for concussion and neurodegenerative disease detection. Utilizing a novel, proprietary software, PROscope captures and analyzes biometric signals to generate a digital signal, which translates to a numeric value that indicates normal or abnormal neurophysiological function. PROscope's data support the tool’s ability to detect deficits, which is not otherwise available with current testing methods. The project’s long-term goals are to further validate these biomarkers with collaborative research, achieve FDA approval, and accelerate clinical adoption in high schools, community sports, emergency care, the military, and collegiate and elite sports medicine settings. The study is non-invasive. The test itself is easy to set up—with minimal hardware requirements—and takes only three minutes to administer. This technology has the potential to transform concussion management by delivering a scalable, objective, and reproducible diagnostic solution. Clinicians and athletic trainers can utilize an objective concussion, biomarker test to improve the quality of care, enhanced diagnostic certainty, streamline, patient management, and ensure athletes are properly triaged. Beyond sport medicine utility, PROscope is also exploring the use of its biometric for detecting and monitoring neurodegenerative disease. PROscope is currently seeking collaboration with neurology clinics specializing in neurodegenerative disease.
  • SAAtient Therapeutics: SAAtient Therapeutics is an early stage, oncology-focused biotech company spun out of Columbia University developing first-in-class monoclonal antibody therapeutics that inhibit the protein, Serum Amyloid A1 (SAA1). Its first product is a mutation-agnostic treatment for two hematologic cancers, Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) and High-risk Myelodysplastic Syndrome (HR-MDS). AML and HR-MDS have high unmet needs, resulting from short durability of responses to current standard of care treatments and consequentially high mortality rates. Changes to cancer stem cells (“clonal evolution”), often in response to drug therapy, can lead to the emergence of new, more resistant populations which in turn results in treatment failure. SAAtient's therapeutic innovation is a first-in-class antibody that decreases disease burden by neutralizing SAA1, a protein released by the bone marrow, which drives the disease process for both AML & MDS. Key advantages of inhibiting SAA1 include: (1) SAA1 does not clonally evolve or change in response to treatment and (2) SAA1 is present across diverse AML & HR-MDS patient populations. SAAtient has generated compelling proof-of-concept data with a murine model of AML and is in the discovery phase for human antibody development candidates. SAAtient has received pre-seed funds and is seeking investments to conduct IND-enabling work.
  • Saravir Biopharma: Saravir Biopharma is leveraging Columbia University’s cutting-edge humanized measles antibodies to treat and prevent measles infection. Despite the existence of a measles vaccine, there is a growing need for new therapies to address those who cannot or won’t take the vaccine. Immunocompromised patients, at risk of measles infections and their consequences, often cannot benefit from vaccination. Additionally, vaccination rates have been declining from year-to-year and will soon leave as many as 10% of the addressable population at risk of infection. Saravir’s antibodies have the potential to both prevent infection and treat patients with measles symptoms, including the 20% of those infected who require hospitalization.
  • SME Biosciences: The current precision cancer medicine is primarily based on DNA sequencing, which is powerful but too slow and only accessible to doctors, clinicians and centralized laboratories. This makes life-saving early testing a distant option for most people. SME Biosciences has the potential solution. Its breakthrough technology enables the non-invasive, early detection of cancer from bodily fluids directly at home. Developed from patented single-molecule electronic nanopore technology from Professor Jingyue Ju’s laboratory at Columbia University, its handheld device directly reads disease-specific molecules in real-time from a simple sample. SME Biosciences delivers what centralized labs cannot: true single-molecule sensitivity, results in minutes, and ultra-low cost for portable use at home, doctor’s office, or a senior living facility. SME Biosciences is not iterating on the past; it is defining the future of diagnostics. The company is moving beyond the centralized lab to usher in a new era of decentralized, proactive health monitoring, starting by capturing a significant share of the $200B global cancer and biomarker detection market.
  • Synaptic Bio: Over the past decade, the Adam Mor Lab at Columbia University has conducted research revealing that the immune synapse—a critical interface between T cells and cancer cells where checkpoint receptors like PD-1 and CTLA-4 operate—is mechanistically vital for cancer immunotherapy in ways that are under-leveraged by existing therapies. Synaptic Bio discovered that relocating the PD-1 receptor from the center to the periphery of the synapse significantly enhances T cell activation beyond traditional ligand blockade. Building on this finding, Synaptic Bio has developed antibodies that induce this spatial shift, resulting in stronger anti-tumor responses and overcoming resistance to existing therapies like Keytruda®—in effect, creating “super-aPD1s.” Additionally, through careful study of immune-related adverse events (irAEs), Synaptic Bio has identified IL-25 (a Type2 proinflammatory cytokine, alarmin) as a critical contributor to both tumor growth and toxicity from Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor (ICI) therapy. Consequently, Synaptic Bio has developed a first-in-class bispecific antibody targeting both PD-1 and IL-25 that effectively suppresses tumors and mitigates irAEs, improving the therapeutic index of checkpoint inhibitors.  IrAEs occur in 30-40% of patients on ICIs, half of which are severe, usually necessitating therapy discontinuation and probable tumor growth. With the rise of ICIs, including combinations and bispecifics, irAEs are becoming perhaps the most common autoimmune disease, surpassing conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. Synaptic Bio is seeking investor partnerships to advance these assets to clinical development.
  • Zip Therapeutics: Zip Therapeutics has developed novel cell-penetrating peptides for treating a range of cancers. Zip Therapeutics was initially focused on myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML).  MDS are a group of bone marrow disorders characterized by the ineffective production of blood cells, leading to severe blood cytopenia and a high risk of progression to AML.  From a clinical perspective, there is a great need for effective and tolerable treatment options for MDS and AML. The novel cell-penetrating peptides target leucine zipper transcription factors ATF5. CEBPB and CEBPD which are key players in cancer cell formation, growth, and metastasis.  Pre-clinical data demonstrate encouraging efficacy and safety across multiple tumor types, including MDS and AML. Zip Therapeutics was founded by a team of researchers and clinicians at Columbia University (Drs. Azra Raza, Lloyd Greene, and Abdullah Ali) and UC Davis (Dr. James Angelastro).  Michele Korfin, an experienced biotech leader with over 25 years in hematology/oncology drug development and launches, serves as CEO. Zip Therapeutics is currently seeking a total of $10M:  $5M in investment to support IND-enabling studies and an additional $5M to finalize readiness for Phase 1, including drug supply.   

TRACK 2 (Software, IT Hardware, Semiconductors, Energy, and Materials)

  • ArmChair: ArmChair is building the middleware for AI agents in software engineering — a unified platform that integrates deep program understanding, combining static analysis, symbolic execution, and dynamic runtime insights into a single, queryable layer. This infrastructure goes beyond storing knowledge; it orchestrates how agents interact with and reason about code, providing them with a trusted, context-rich foundation. ArmChair's immediate focus is on enabling high-level software engineering tasks that are typically performed by experienced engineers and require deep project-wide knowledge, far beyond basic coding assistance. Using its infrastructure, ArmChair will deliver two specialized agents: 1. Code Quality Reviewer – assessing the security, reliability, and maintainability of AI-generated code, effectively mimicking the judgment of a senior engineer during a code review. 2. Project Architect – analyzing and re-architecting entire codebases to accelerate large-scale software modernization, mimicking the strategic insights of an experienced system architect.
  • Atom Array Technologies: Atom Array Technologies is building a scalable neutral-atom quantum computing platform with 100,000 qubits by 2028, enabled by its proprietary holographic metasurface technology. Neutral-atom systems, the fastest growing quantum computing platform, are facing a hard scaling limit in qubit number. Atom Array's chip-based approach breaks this barrier with hardware that is more powerful, cheaper, and inherently scalable. With qubit numbers more than two-orders of magnitude beyond the state of the art, the company's atom arrays will be the cornerstone for fault-tolerant quantum computing. Atom Array's team members - the pioneering researchers who developed this technology - are world leaders in atomic quantum systems and metasurface optics, uniquely positioned to transform laboratory prototypes into meaningful quantum devices. Atom Array is tackling the hardest problem in quantum computing - scalability - with a technology driven company.
  • Pathwai: Pathwai is commercializing EchoNext, an FDA Breakthrough-designated AI tool that analyzes routine 12-lead ECGs to detect structural heart disease (SHD) earlier and more accurately than standard care. Spun out of NewYork-Presbyterian & Columbia in April 2025 as a Delaware C-Corp, EchoNext transforms the standard ECG into a high-accuracy screening tool for SHD—including heart failure, aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation, pulmonary hypertension, and cardiac amyloidosis. New CPT codes enable reimbursement at $129 per AI analysis of ECG, covered by CMS, with 150M ECGs done annually in the US. EchoNext is trained on >1.2M ECG-echo pairs, validated at 4 health systems, 11 hospitals, and over 190 clinics and has twice the accuracy of 13 cardiologists in a blinded study. Pathwai is led by Dr. Pierre Elias, Columbia cardiologist, NYP’s Medical Director for AI, and a nationally recognized expert in AI whose work has appeared in Nature, Circulation, JACC, and European Heart Journal.
  • Red Ox Metals: The Alan West lab, through non-dilutive funding, has developed a hydrometallurgical process for nickel and cobalt production from sulfide ores.  Nickel and cobalt are critical materials for energy storage, with projected demand for nickel to triple.  Current State-of-the-Art processing techniques for these domestic resources are environmentally incongruent with near future increases in demand. At the lab scale, real ore resources from Tamarack, MN have been refined to mixed hydroxy precipitate- a key nickel commodity in battery supply chains. The product purity meets or exceeds industry standards, with operating expenses and environmental impacts that will make the technology attractive and viable for on-shoring metal production. To the lab's knowledge, the Red Ox Metals chemistry and process is a unique platform relative to all existing and emerging technologies, and may be applicable to other critical materials.
  • SecureFinAI Lab: Several pilot clients have been partnering with SecureFinAI lab to build customized financial agents, powered by FinGPT. SecureFinAI's clients expect to upgrade their internal systems for financial tasks, such as information retrieval, robo-advisor, customer services, credit scoring, report generation, and compliance. FinGPT is a cost-effective alternative to BloombergGPT and Bloomberg terminal. Using FinGPT as the base model, SecureFinAI provides an affordable and scalable solution to customize FinAgents for companies. SecureFinAI's solution includes three components: benchmarking model, curating a financial dataset, low-cost adaptation of models/agents. SecureFinAI aims to spin off campus and build a startup to serve its clients in the intersection of generative AI and finance.
  • Tessellate 2D: There are more transistors made every year than there are grains of sand on earth, and like sand they are primarily made of silicon. Improved computer chip performance requires ever smaller transistor sizes, but silicon transistors have reached their fundamental physical limit. The most promising alternative to silicon at ultra-short length scales are two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. Tessellate 2D manufactures the highest quality 2D semiconductors for next generation computer chips. Leveraging patented technology developed at Columbia University, Tessellate deterministically disassembles bulk 2D semiconductor crystals into their component angstrom-thick monolayers. This “gold-stamp” method produces monolayers with record low defect densities, record high performance, and industrially compatible sizes. Tessellate will supply the semiconductor industry with the 2D semiconductor monolayers it needs to meet the computational demands of high growth industries such as artificial intelligence.
  • Turnover Labs: Turnover Labs is building rugged, distributed electrolyzers that turn industrial CO2 emissions into high-grade feedstocks for fuels, plastics, and specialty chemicals. Unlike traditional solutions that require costly capture, purification, or pipelines, Turnover's electrified process runs directly on dilute, contaminant-rich emissions from fermentation off-gas, biogas, and petrochemical vent streams.  Turnover's “tractor-grade” electrolyzers are designed for reliability, low cost, and modular deployment to help industrial facilities decarbonize without waiting for massive infrastructure build-outs. Converting these emissions into revenue-generating molecules, rather than simply sequestering, offers a faster, more practical pathway to decarbonize the chemicals sector.