Startup Trends: 3 breakthrough biotech companies
Some private companies in the biotechnology sector have attracted renowned top-tier investors due to their innovations. These ventures continue to push the limits of what’s possible in genetic engineering, longevity research and molecular diagnostics. Three companies continue to make breakthroughs in these areas and are listed on Forge Global.
Colossal Biosciences, a genetics firm
Colossal Biosciences is a biotechnology company with the mission to bring extinct animal species back into existence. The company employs teams of researchers aiming to uncover methods of rebuilding DNA systems using CRISPR (Clustered Regulatory Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and genetic engineering to reawaken prehistoric life and biology.
The Dallas, Texas-based company recently announced that it had returned the extinct dire wolf back into existence. The private company manipulated genes of one of the dire wolves’ relatives, the North American grey wolf, to birth the new pups in early April. The dire wolf disappeared around 10,000 years ago.1 Scientists at Colossal used a dire wolf’s tooth from nearly 13,000 years ago from Ohio and a 72,000-year-old skull exhumed from Idaho to guide this development.
Along with the new pups, Colossal also birthed a litter of red wolves, one of the most critically endangered species of wolves in the world.
Colossal has ambitions to bring back the more popular woolly mammoth that roamed North America nearly 4,000 years ago through its research codenamed the “The Woolly Mammoth Project.”2
Founded in 2021, Colossal Biosciences’ price-per-share was $24.89 as of its last funding round in January 2025, implying a post-money valuation of $10.20 billion.
Notable investors in the firm include At One Ventures, Jazz Venture Partners, TWG Global and Westriver Capital.
Altos Labs, cellular resilience
Altos Labs is an American biotechnology research company founded in 2022 and focused on cellular rejuvenation programming to restore cell health and resilience, with the goal of reversing disease. As part of this research and development, the company is also looking into new ways to slow the aging process.
Headquartered in Redwood City, California, the firm has operations in San Diego, CA and in Cambridge, UK, with a board of directors and advisors that include Nobel Laureates and scientific leaders, according to its website.3
Last year, Altos Labs announced the creation of its Institute of Computation (IoC), developed to combine AI and computational biology to create models that generate cellular resilience and reverse aging and various human health ailments.4
The company launched out of stealth in 2022 with $3 billion5 in early funding from early investors such as Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.6
Altos Labs’ price-per-share was $25.02 as of its last funding round in February 2024, implying a post-money valuation of $6.33 billion. Some of the firm’s notable investors include Arch Venture Partners, Foresite Capital and Mubadala Investment Company.
Mammoth Biosciences, a diagnostics company
Based in Brisbane, California, Mammoth Biosciences is developing CRISPR-based tools for both health diagnostics and therapeutics. The company’s diagnostics platform allows for fast, point-of-care detection of infectious diseases.
The private company has made strides in its gene therapeutics division recently. In May of 2025, Mammoth announced the first results of its In Vivo gene editing, which accomplished the editing of certain skeletal muscle tissue in mice and non-primate humans using a viral vector.7
“This study represents a major advancement for the gene editing field, which has long been limited by access to extrahepatic tissues,” said Janice Chen, Ph.D., cofounder and chief technology officer of Mammoth Biosciences.
Founded in 2017, Mammoth’s price-per-share is $13.45 as of its latest Series D-2 funding round in April of 2024, resulting in a post-money valuation of $1.35 billion. The private company’s notable investors include Redmile Group, Greenspring Associates, Sixth Street and Mayfield Fund.
$10.2B
$6.33B
$1.35B
