The round was led by 8VC and Basis Set Ventures, with participation from Define Ventures and Even One Ventures.
We’re thrilled to have these partners on our journey to transform cancer diagnostics. These are firms with rich traditions of partnership and company-building. Most importantly, we have worked with the lead investors at each for more than a decade. They were our first calls.
At Valius, we are taking a radical new approach to cancer: maximalist diagnostics. Our thesis is simple: if cancer patients know as much as possible about their unique tumor biology, across all biological levels (DNA, RNA, and protein), they and their physicians can make the best treatment decisions.
The maximalist approach is increasingly critical. Each year, new targeted therapies come to market exploiting specific biological vulnerabilities of cancer cells. These biological vulnerabilities are often shared across a small fraction of many cancers, rather than being specific to one type of cancer. Given this – many targetable alterations, each rare but collectively common - the right strategy is to measure everything. Especially for challenging cancers, this approach can reveal biomarker-suggested treatment options that would never have been identified by standard, limited testing.
Valius proudly takes this approach to the extreme. We analyze expression levels across all 20,000 genes, not just a select few that are associated with that type of cancer. We evaluate each patient’s tumor at the single cell level, to identify areas of heterogeneity and to confirm targets are strongly expressed within tumor cells themselves. We do this for every longitudinal sample the patient has: initial biopsy, surgical resection, and every subsequent recurrence biopsy.
Most importantly, we empower patients with information and intelligence, a radical departure for an industry that has long been overly paternalistic. Traditional diagnostics deliver a PDF report with only a fraction of the biological information that they measured. Patients and physicians have little ability to explore the underlying data, evaluate new findings, or assess expression levels of uncommon targets.
We understand the conservative approach (there's a lot of snake oil out there), but we don't agree with it. Today, it’s especially untenable. The world of medicine has changed. The first thing patients do after receiving a test result is to consult ChatGPT. Instead of fighting this reality, we decided to orient our entire company around it. Our maxim: give patients all their data, and make it as easy as possible to analyze with AI.
Our approach has drawbacks. It’s expensive. It’s aggressive. And the outputs can be suggestive rather than definitive. But we have high conviction that this is how cancer diagnostics should and will be done in the future.
Over the last several decades, cancer care has been shaped by “guidelines”—standardized, evidence-based approaches derived from rigorous clinical trials. This has been a positive development: guidelines have unquestionably raised the floor on cancer care. Fewer patients receive outdated or substandard therapeutic regimens.
Valius aims to raise the ceiling: to get more patients to lasting remission or cure. We believe the path to do that is to tailor treatment to each patient’s specific tumor biology. In this world, guidelines become a starting point—not the final word. Oncologists can once again think rigorously, creatively, and specifically about each patient.
This is the future we’re excited to build. We're thrilled to have even more ability to do so.
Onwards.
