ELIZABETH ELTING FOUNDATION VENTURES
OUR VENTURE FUND GUIDES FOUNDERS THROUGH A PERFORMANCE-BASED MENTORING PROCESS. THE FUND IS OPEN TO EARLY-STAGE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STARTUPS.
2023 INVESTMENT FUND RECIPIENTS
Deep Tech Recipient: Powering The Next Generation Of Biotechnologies. Designing better proteins with greater efficiency and success. Inspired by nature, design intelligently.
Digital Tech Recipient: Changing lives through better nutrition, one session at a time. Culina Health believes that everyone deserves affordable, quality nutrition care from a credentialed expert. They pair patients with registered dietitians for personalized, one-on-one virtual nutrition care that is science-based, inclusive, and culturally affirming.
Life Sciences Recipient: Defining the Circulome to Solve Disease. Phinomics uses circular DNA, an early marker of genetic and environmental change, to diagnose disease and radically improve human health. By isolating and sequencing the circular genome, they solve a genetic puzzle that unlocks a universal “stage-zero” diagnostic for disease. At scale, circulome data will revolutionize diagnostics and identify new therapies.
Life Science Recipient: MarPam Pharma is developing a revolutionary one-time HIV treatment that equips a patient's own immune cells with the ability to seek out and destroy HIV where it hides, thus eliminating the burdensome need for daily medications.
Deep Tech Recipient: EV Biotech creates Microbial Cell factories using cutting edge computational modeling technology to provide industry with effective production methods. This is done faster, better, and cheaper by using its EEVEE pipeline consisting of proprietary computer algorithms to evaluate millions of strategies and can precisely tailor the cell to client requirements.
Life Science Recipient: Sardona Therapeutics is developing small molecules that target RNA regulators to overcome therapy resistance in cancer. By focusing on dysregulated pathways in cancer stem cells, but not healthy tissue, Sardona’s novel small molecules will likely have a broad therapeutic window.
Deep Tech Recipient: Shiru leverages machine learning and precision biology to identify functional, nutritious, and sustainable protein ingredients. Shiru aims to create sustainable food solutions that future-proof our food supply by leveraging high-tech solutions.
Digital Tech Recipient: TRIPP is building a self-directed, fully immersive XR platform to help individuals seeking personal transformation or assistance with mental health issues by designing and curating neuroscientific-based digital wellness psychedelic experiences.
EMPOWERING THE THRIVING NYC STARTUP ECOSYSTEM
Founded at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Endless Frontier Labs guides founders through a performance-based mentoring process. Endless Frontier Labs is open to early-stage science and technology startups. The program is suitable for founders from around the world seeking connections to the thriving New York startup ecosystem or U.S. markets.
As a NYU Stern alumna, Elizabeth Elting (MBA ’92) through the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, has donated $2M to Endless Frontier Labs to provide investment funding for promising ventures featuring women in leadership positions or women-centric businesses that have successfully completed the program.
“I am incredibly excited to partner with the EFL. Its mission mirrors the goals and drive behind the Elizabeth Elting Foundation, and I am so grateful to have such a partner in our work to support women-led startups with the potential to change the world. These companies deserve recognition for their industriousness, clarity of vision, and purity of purpose, and getting to be a small part of their future triumphs, here at the ground floor, is a true honor. The ambition and sophistication of each and every Elizabeth Elting Venture Fund recipient blows me away, and I count myself fortunate to be able to support their visions.”
- Liz Elting, Founder and CEO of The Elizabeth Elting Foundation
2022 INVESTMENT FUND RECIPIENTS
Life Science Recipient: MarPam Pharma is developing a revolutionary one-time HIV treatment that equips a patient's own immune cells with the ability to seek out and destroy HIV where it hides, thus eliminating the burdensome need for daily medications.
Deep Tech Recipient: EV Biotech creates Microbial Cell factories using cutting edge computational modeling technology to provide industry with effective production methods. This is done faster, better, and cheaper by using its EEVEE pipeline consisting of proprietary computer algorithms to evaluate millions of strategies and can precisely tailor the cell to client requirements.
Digital Tech Recipient: TRIPP is building a self-directed, fully immersive XR platform to help individuals seeking personal transformation or assistance with mental health issues by designing and curating neuroscientific-based digital wellness psychedelic experiences.
2021 INVESTMENT FUND RECIPIENTS
Life Science Recipient: Sardona Therapeutics is developing small molecules that target RNA regulators to overcome therapy resistance in cancer. By focusing on dysregulated pathways in cancer stem cells, but not healthy tissue, Sardona’s novel small molecules will likely have a broad therapeutic window.
Deep Tech Recipient: Shiru leverages machine learning and precision biology to identify functional, nutritious, and sustainable protein ingredients. Shiru aims to create sustainable food solutions that future-proof our food supply by leveraging high-tech solutions.
2020 INVESTMENT FUND RECIPIENTS
Life Science Recipient: SiDx is modernizing blood testing. The company's patented technology can return blood typing results in a fraction of the time of current methods conserving universal blood units and reducing key shortages in the blood supply.
Without any sample preparation, a few drops of whole blood will be directly applied to the cartridge and inserted into the reader. Testing will be completed without further user intervention; no specialized personnel training is required. The technology will have a small benchtop footprint and can transmit results electronically in real-time in addition to providing results locally. These capabilities will increase access to testing and dramatically reduce the time to determine the blood type, improving patient care and use of scarce blood units.
Deep Tech Recipient: Stratyfy's mission is to accelerate financial inclusion b providing greater visibility and less bias to critical financial decisions that impact millions of people.
Stratyfy delivers a growing suite of proprietary machine learning products for financial institutions and fintechs, optimizing credit risk assessment and fraud detection while minimizing risk and mitigating bias. With Stratyfy, companies can optimize their decisions and reduce bias to serve more customers and drive better business outcomes.
“I am so grateful to have such a partner in our work to support women-led startups with the potential to change the world.”
- Liz Elting, Founder & CEO
AHA Social Impact Fund
The American Heart Association's Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund is a national fund with a focus on supporting and investing in evidence-based, locally-led solutions that are breaking down the social and economic barriers to health equity.
As part of the foundation’s philanthropic efforts, Liz has contributed generously supporting seven incredible women-led organizations in securing over $5 million in follow-on investments that span a variety of social determinants impeding access to healthcare including mental healthcare access, access to housing, and promoting economic resiliency.
MindRight Health
Addressing: Mental Health & Healthcare Access
MindRight Health is a tech start-up that is advancing health equity by making mental health care accessible to and inclusive of communities of color and low-income families. MindRight meets people where they are through culturally responsive mental health coaching over text messages to empower historically marginalized communities to heal from trauma.
Outcomes:
Provided 352 underserved youth and young adults with access to mental health care.
There were 71% of these underserved youth and young adults who reported experiencing reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression.
MindRight was approved as a provider through a Medicaid plan, which was initially a moonshot goal. This will drive rapid deployment across thousands of youth Medicaid recipients.
Raised a $2 million seed investment round, which was oversubscribed.
New Destiny Housing
Addressing: Access to Housing
New Destiny Housing Corporation is a non-profit housing organization with a mission to end the cycle of violence and homelessness for low-income families and victims of domestic violence by quickly connecting families to safe and permanent affordable housing and financial management support services.
Outcomes:
Placed 46 domestic violence survivors and their children into permanent housing—impacting the lives of approximately 150 people.
Of the 150 people impacted, the housing stability rate was 100% after the first year and remained 100% in the second year.
The Knowledge House
Addressing: Economic Resiliency
The Knowledge House is committed to taking low-income youth and young adults from unemployment and underemployment to financial independence and stability by providing them with free technical training and professional development services that put them on a direct path to employment in the tech sector.
Outcomes:
Trained 95 low-income, un/under-employed Bronx residents to launch technology careers.
There were 40 graduates (over 18 years old) who were placed in jobs earning an average base salary of $75,000.
Funding supported the launch of their satellite teams in Atlanta and Newark as well as additional grants from Snapchat and an investment from the Netflix founder.
Cognitive ToyBox
Addressing: Reducing the Achievement Gap
Cognitive ToyBox is a woman-led business that proposes a new paradigm for early childhood assessment: a hybrid observation and direct (game-based) assessment platform to assess the skills and knowledge that are important for children’s later success. This combination minimizes the implicit bias from teacher assessment and provides real-time data to match instruction to level of development through a more efficient process.
Goals:
Reach 1,600 underserved students with tailored instruction that has the potential to improve long-term educational outcomes.
Expand to 4 additional publicly funded early childhood education programs.
Generate $1 million in recurring revenue, driving towards profitability.
Power of Two
Addressing: Mental Health, Social Cohesion
Power of Two is a Latina-led nonprofit that was founded in Brownsville, Brooklyn to address the reality that often, children born into poverty are also born into families that have themselves experienced trauma. Power of Two partners with caregivers and children in New York City using responsive parenting as a springboard to address trauma and strengthen social cohesion for families.
Goals:
Empower thousands of New York City families involved with the child welfare system to address toxic stress and build social cohesion that gives children a foundation for success.
Expand Power of Two’s evidence-based model to two additional low-income neighborhoods.
Reduce depressive symptoms for 75% of caregivers enrolled in the program.
Stepful
Addressing: Economic Resiliency
Stepful is an immigrant-led technology start-up that is reimagining healthcare vocational training to upskill unemployed and minimum wage workers. Stepful is disrupting the existing healthcare vocational training model by combining a scalable technology with digital content that enables participants to train on their own time, with the goal of creating economic opportunity for individuals with only a high school degree.
Projected Outcomes:
Train and place hundreds of un/underemployed New Yorkers into living wage jobs with the potential to lift-up families and stop the cycles of generational poverty.
Generate $4.8 million in aggregate income for underserved families in New York City.
Launch two additional allied healthcare career modules, catalyzing the path to scale and sustainability, while creating upskilling opportunities for participants.
Strong Children Wellness
Addressing: Access to Healthcare
Strong Children Wellness integrates primary care hubs into established community-based mental health and social service organizations in New York City. SCW’s innovative model, coined “reverse integrated care bringing primary care into CBOs that are experts at supporting families with histories of trauma and social risks that lie at the root of health disparities.
Projected Outcomes:
Increase engagement in collaborative care for thousands of marginalized children in New York City.
Have 85% of patients complete referrals to social services addressing social determinants of health challenges.
Build out a care team to open an additional hub site in the South Bronx and diversify its revenue streams for long-term sustainability.