Key Investor Signals
Raised a $7.2M oversubscribed seed round in May 2026.
Blank Bio closed a $7.2 million oversubscribed seed round backed by Define Ventures, Leonis Capital, Nova Threshold, Ripple Ventures, SignalFire, and .
Partnered with PacBio to generate long-read RNA-seq data
Blank Bio and will generate HiFi long-read bulk RNA-seq data from up to 100 fresh-frozen patient tumor samples across multiple cancer indications at Seattle Children's Research Institute.
Selected for Y Combinator's Summer 2025 batch.
Blank Bio was selected for Y Combinator’s Summer 2025 batch, with Ankit Gupta as primary partner.
Other Positive Signals
- Orthrus, the behind the company, was published in in April 2026. It outperformed existing genomic foundation models on mRNA property prediction while needing only a fraction of the fine-tuning data.
- Team includes alumni from , , DeepMind, Amazon, MSK, Stanford, and .
- Co-founder Philip Fradkin was co-first author on a NeurIPS 2024 paper on contrastive phenomolecular retrieval, which won best paper at the Foundation Models for Science workshop.
Team
Jonny Hsu
CEO & Co-Founder
- Rose from Operations to Senior Strategy and Product Associate over three and a half years at Valence Discovery and , through Recursion Pharmaceuticals’ (Nasdaq: RXRX) acquisition in May 2023.
- Built Polaris, an open benchmarking platform for machine learning in drug discovery, and Valence Labs’ public research portal.
- Director of Investments at Front Row Ventures, Canada’s first university-focused venture fund, leading 17 associates across more than 30 Ontario campuses.
- Analyst at digital-health venture firm Esplanade Ventures, after a science and business degree with a biochemistry specialization from the University of Waterloo.
Philip Fradkin
Co-Founder
- One of the first employees at Deep Genomics, where he spent four years on machine learning for RNA biology.
- Earned a PhD at the University of Toronto, with research affiliations at the Vector Institute.
- Co-first author of Orthrus, the RNA foundation model published in Nature Methods in April 2026.
- Co-first author of a NeurIPS 2024 paper on contrastive phenomolecular retrieval, best paper at the Foundation Models for Science workshop.
Ruian Shi
Co-Founder
- Earned a PhD in computer science at the University of Toronto, with research affiliations at the Vector Institute.
- Researcher in the Computational and Systems Biology Program at the Sloan Kettering Institute, .
- First author of mRNABench, an open benchmark for mature mRNA property and function prediction.
- Software engineer at Amazon, with earlier research-scientist internships at Amazon and Pinterest.
Product
Blank Bio is building RNA foundation models for oncology . Its platform analyses RNA-sequencing data to help pharmaceutical and diagnostic teams predict treatment response, assess disease progression, and improve existing molecular tests.
Built on existing RNA sequencing
Blank Bio uses bulk RNA-sequencing data already generated in oncology research and clinical development. Customers can apply the platform without changing how patient samples are collected or sequenced.
Functional RNA modelling
The underlying model learns which RNA sequences perform similar biological functions rather than predicting sequences one letter at a time. It is trained by comparing related genes across hundreds of mammalian species.
Three clinical applications
Predictive biomarkers help identify patients likely to respond to treatment. Prognostic scores estimate disease progression, while diagnostic partnerships apply the models to improve existing RNA-sequencing tests.
Market Overview
Oncology represents 41% of clinical trials, with 2,162 oncology studies started in 2024. These programs can remain in clinical development for more than a decade, making the selection of patients most likely to respond commercially important. Oncology programs using biomarkers for patient selection have historically reached approval at a much higher rate than programs without them.
RNA sequencing already captures molecular information from patient samples, but standard analysis often reduces this information to per-gene counts. This can discard transcript-level features that may help explain treatment response or disease progression. The opportunity sits in extracting more predictive value from an assay already used across oncology research and clinical development.
Share of all clinical trials represented by oncology, with 2,162 studies started in 2024.
Oncology programs using biomarkers for patient selection reached approval 10.7% of the time, compared with 1.6% without biomarkers.
Projected growth from 2024 to 2029 at list prices.
Projected growth from 2024 to 2030, representing a 17.3% compound annual growth rate.
Comparable Outcomes
Noetik
built oncology foundation models trained on spatial-biology data to model gene expression, cell states and tumor-immune interactions. In January 2026, GSK licensed two Noetik models for lung and colorectal cancer under a five-year, non-exclusive agreement. The deal includes $50 million in upfront and near-term payments, plus annual subscription fees.
Genomic Health
developed Oncotype DX, a breast-cancer test that analyses 21 genes to predict recurrence risk and likely benefit from chemotherapy. Genomic Health listed on Nasdaq in 2005 at $12 per share, valuing it at approximately $292 million. acquired the company in 2019 for $72 per share in cash and stock, valuing the transaction at $2.8 billion.
Caris Life Sciences
Caris built a precision-oncology platform combining whole-exome and whole- sequencing with machine learning. It provides molecular profiling to clinicians and supports biopharma companies with treatment selection and drug development. Caris listed on Nasdaq in June 2025 at $21 per share. It sold 23.5 million shares for $494.1 million in gross proceeds, giving the company a valuation of approximately $5.8 billion.
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Sources
This profile was built from public company materials, ecosystem sources, market references, and professional profiles.