Lassogen, a company dedicated to developing lasso peptides as an entirely new therapeutic modality, today announced that it has raised $4.5 million in an oversubscribed seed round of funding led by Playground Global with participation from Better Ventures, First In Ventures, Tsingyuan Ventures, and additional investors. Combined with pre-seed funding in 2019, Lassogen has raised investment capital totaling $5.1 million to date. The seed investment proceeds will enable the company to achieve key results that demonstrate the utility and promise of lasso peptides for treating serious human diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity, pain, and inflammation.

Lassogen is developing a new class of peptide therapeutics that combine the strengths of antibodies and small molecule drugs while overcoming many of their limitations. Lasso peptides are folded into a unique lariat structure which renders them extraordinarily stable to degradation by proteases, low pH, or high temperatures and provides a three-dimensional array of amino acid side chains to engage targets with high affinity and selectivity. Naturally occurring lasso peptides are diverse in terms of size, shape, and composition, thus offering highly tunable and modular scaffolds for designing novel therapeutics with optimized properties. Lassogen is harnessing the untapped power of lasso peptides as a novel modality to treat some of the world's most challenging diseases. Founded in 2019 by leading figures in biotechnology, drug development, and academia, the company is headquartered in the biotech hub of San Diego. Visit Lassogen.com for more information.