H2i Ventures in the News: Mesosil, FMRK & NorthMiRs
As summer begins, things are heating up for the H2i venture community!
Congratulations to Mesosil who recently announced the closing of a $2.2 million CAD round of seed funding! The funding round, led by GreenSky Capital, will aid the Mesosil team in moving their flagship product into the market. Mesosil was founded in 2015 at the University of Toronto by CEO Cameron Stewart. Since then, Stewart and his team have made impressive strides towards their goal of intervening at the tissue bio-material level to prevent infection and disease, and extend the lifespan of dental and medical devices. The team’s flagship product works to prevent infections which can occur from implants used in dentistry or orthopedics. Mesosil prides itself on its dedication to creating quality materials through extensive but efficient research and development, an attribute that earned the attention and trust of their customers and investors-to-date.
Curious to learn more about the origins of Mesosil? Check out this venture spotlight!
Congratulations to FMRK Diagnostic Technologies who was recently announced as a member of the 2024 Praxis Spinal Cord Institute Incubate Cohort! The four-month virtual program supports ventures working to transform the lives of those living with spinal cord injury (SCI). FMRK was selected by a panel of esteemed leaders in the field for their work enabling and decentralizing healthcare through accessible, easy-to-use patient testing. The FMRK team has developed a product to make it easier to access care for suspected Urinary Tract Infections, a notable challenge and health risk for people living with SCI. The product provides this proximate, precision medicine through the delivery of Personalized Early Intervention Recommendations (P.I.E.Rs) through pharmacies and long term-care facilities, avoiding trips and long waits in doctors’ offices or labs.
Of the accomplishment, FMRK Founder and CEO Faisal Khan shared, “We’re thrilled to have been selected to participate in the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute Incubator. Our near patient antibiotic susceptibility test has the potential to help the lives of millions of Canadians, among them persons with Spinal Cord Injuries. By being selected to this one-of-a-kind program we can ensure that our products meet the needs of this demographic and in the very near future have a positive impact on their quality of life.”
The impressive work of NorthMiRs was recently profiled in an article by Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research. This profile comes in anticipation of the Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) Pitch Competition this fall. The competition, the culminating event of ECHO’s 12-month national training program, showcases the most recent cohort’s work, with a $250,000 prize up for grabs.
NorthMiRs is led by Samantha McWhirter, Amin Ektesabi, and Chirag Vaswani, all of whom are currently completing their PhD’s within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. NorthMiRs is improving sepsis treatment through the development of RNA-based therapeutics. Through the course of the ECHO program, NorthMiRs further developed their venture and their flagship product, NM-001, which treats sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. Sepsis poses an urgent threat to our medical systems, as the most common cause of death for the critically ill, and a significant source of financial strain to healthcare systems. Despite this, there has been little medical innovation over the past century. The NorthMiRs team is motivated to change this, and to create innovative solutions which improve patient treatment and outcomes, relieve financial strain and expand hospital treatment capacity.