Austin Draycott
Mari Anne Snow
Two graduates of the Fall 2023 Drive cohort hit major milestones within two weeks of each other. MassBio’s Chief Innovation & Operating Officer Jason Cordeiro on what got them there, and what it will take to do it for more founders.
Cloverleaf Bio just closed a $33 million oversubscribed seed round led by 4BIO Capital, with AbbVie Ventures, Lilly, and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund all in at preclinical. Eascra Biotech won a $7.96 million NASA InSPA Phase 2 contract to manufacture its nanoparticle delivery platform in low Earth orbit, then tripled its lab footprint in Worcester.
Both wins landed within two weeks of each other. Both companies came through the same Drive cohort in the fall of 2023, an eight-week program that costs founders nothing and takes no equity.
Congratulations to Austin Draycott at Cloverleaf, Mari Anne Snow at Eascra, and their co-founders and teams. They built the science and they did the work to get it funded. Eascra was our Drive Startup of the Year in 2024, and the team has not slowed down since. But look at what got them off the ground. Draycott used his financing announcement to thank the NCI’s Small Business Innovation Research / Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs, crediting federal research dollars with making the platform possible. Eascra’s newest milestone is a federal contract. Non-dilutive capital and hands-on operating support are what carry good science from a lab bench to a term sheet.
“Federally funded research was foundational to getting this platform off the ground, and we’re proud to build on that public investment as we move toward the clinic.” — Austin Draycott, PhD, CEO and Co-Founder of Cloverleaf Bio
Drive already delivers the support side of that. Since 2022, it has worked with 70 early-stage companies that have gone on to raise $178 million and create nearly 100 jobs.
Seed is the hardest money in biotech to raise right now, and good science stalls waiting for it. Drive should be bigger than it is, and MassBio is not going to close that gap alone.
Cloverleaf’s round shows the shape of the answer: Mission BioCapital and BrightEdge – American Cancer Society at seed, alongside three pharma venture arms. We want to build that kind of coalition around Drive, with non-dilutive funding for founders and the wraparound services that decide whether a company sees year three. Legal and IP. Banking. CRO and CDMO access. Bench space.
Align Summit is October 15 at the Sheraton Boston. 19 Drive companies are among the 55 presenting, and you will hear the science directly from the people who built it.
