Funding profile · Synthetic biology tools

Synvivia

Almost every dollar traceable to this company is federal. The only filing with the SEC is a $54,096 equity sale to a single investor in December 2023.

$3.05MFederal awards on record, NIH and NSF, 2016 to 2026
$2.50MNIH Direct to Phase II SBIR for AAV manufacturing, FY2025 and FY2026
$54,096Sold in the only Form D on record, Dec 2023
1Investor in that offering

Data as of September 22, 2026. Company-reported figures are labeled.

Rounds at a glance

When Round Amount Investors Source
Summer 2016 Y Combinator batch Not disclosed Y Combinator YC directory
Sep 2016 to Aug 2018 NIH SBIR Phase I, NIDDK $295,172 Federal grant, PI Gabriel Lopez NIH
Dec 2021 to Nov 2022 NSF SBIR Phase I $255,910 Federal grant, PI Gabriel Lopez NSF
Dec 2023 Equity sale under Regulation D $54,096 1 investor, not named Form D
Dec 2024 to Nov 2026 NIH SBIR Direct to Phase II, NIGMS $2,496,437 Federal grant, PI Charlie Huang NIH
Any year Priced venture round None found None disclosed Not found

What the filings show

Synvivia, Inc. · Form D · filed Dec 11, 2023

First sale
Dec 6, 2023
Offered
$54,096 equity
Sold
$54,096 · $0 remaining
Investors
1 · average $54,096
Exemption
Rule 506(c)
Minimum investment
$0 · no sales compensation, no finders fees
Issuer
Delaware corporation, Berkeley, CA · industry biotechnology · revenue range: no revenues
Related persons
Gabriel Lopez, executive officer and director. The filing states he is the sole executive officer and sole director.
Filing
SEC EDGAR, CIK 0002003070

Reading the filings

  1. The equity on record is a rounding error next to the grants.Federal awards total $3,047,519. The single Regulation D sale totals $54,096. That is a ratio of about 56 to 1. On the public record this is a grant funded research company that happens to be a Delaware C corporation, not a venture backed startup.
  2. One investor, one number, nothing left over.Offered $54,096, sold $54,096, zero remaining, one investor, minimum investment zero. An offering sized to the exact dollar of what was sold, filed five days after the first sale, is the shape of a single pre-arranged subscription, not a marketed round. The odd, unrounded figure points to a conversion or a priced allocation calculated from a share count rather than a negotiated headline number.
  3. The exemption claimed is 506(c), not 506(b).Rule 506(c) permits general solicitation but obliges the issuer to take reasonable steps to verify that every purchaser is accredited. A company taking one small check from one known party would normally sit under 506(b) and avoid that burden. Electing 506(c) is consistent with an issuer that wanted to be free to talk about the raise in public.
  4. Seven years passed before the company had a CIK.Synvivia went through Y Combinator in 2016 and first appears in EDGAR in December 2023. Financings done under Section 4(a)(2), and the standard accelerator instrument, generate no Form D at all, so the silence does not prove that no money moved. It does bound how much moved under Regulation D: on the record, $54,096.
  5. There is no board, only a founder.The filing lists one related person and states that he is the sole executive officer and sole director. No investor seat, no outside chair, no co-founder in a governance role. That is what a capital structure without priced equity looks like from the outside.
  6. The federal money moved from safety to yield.The two biocontainment awards, NIH in 2016 and NSF in 2021, were Phase I only and total $551,082 between them. The $2,496,437 awarded since December 2024 is a Direct to Phase II for raising adeno-associated virus vector yield in gene therapy manufacturing. Reviewers funded the manufacturing thesis at four and a half times the containment one, and the later award skipped Phase I entirely.

Commercial signals

Signal Detail Source type
Revenue The December 2023 Form D reports the issuer revenue range as no revenues. An SBIR awardee directory profile last edited June 2022 lists revenue under $500,000 and answers no to venture funding. Public record
Customers No named customer, licensee or commercial partner found as of September 22, 2026. Not found
Product surface The company website carries one line of description, a contact field and a financial conflict of interest policy, which is a condition of holding NIH awards. No product page, no pricing. Company-stated
Intellectual property A published application assigned to Synvivia claims cyclic peptide methods that raise viral titer and transduction efficiency. The biocontainment patents are assigned to UC Berkeley and licensed to the company exclusively in all fields of use. Public record
Headcount and status Y Combinator lists a team of four and a status of Active in September 2026. The NIH award runs to November 30, 2026. Company-stated
Third party figures Commercial company databases publish total funding, revenue and valuation numbers for Synvivia that disagree with one another by more than an order of magnitude and that no filing supports. Treat none of them as evidence. Unsupported

What to watch

  • Any Form D above $54,096. It is due within 15 days of the first sale and would be the first sign of outside equity at a size that changes the company.
  • The end of R44GM158472 on November 30, 2026, and whether a renewal, a Phase IIB or a commercialization award follows.
  • A second name in the related persons list, which would mark the first outside board seat.
  • A named gene therapy manufacturer using the cyclic peptide process, or any licensing revenue.
  • The registered address. The 2023 filing lists Berkeley; company directories list Emeryville and San Francisco.

The Synvivia story on Healthcare DiscoveryHealthcare Discovery

Related companies

  • 20n: Also in Industrial Bio. A Y Combinator biotech whose software invented a fermentation route to the active ingredient in Tylenol, then published its whole stack as open source in March 2017 and
  • Ansa Biotechnologies: Also in Industrial Bio. An enzymatic DNA synthesis company in Emeryville that sells the genes other vendors decline
  • 64x Bio: Also in Industrial Bio. A Harvard spinout that engineers the cells which manufacture viral vectors, rather than the therapies those vectors carry
  • Lygos: Also in Industrial Bio. A Berkeley Lab spinout that taught yeast to make malonic acid without cyanide, then became a specialty chemicals supplier whose polymers end up in shampoo, diapers and

Sources

  1. Public recordForm D, Synvivia, Inc., accession 0002003070-23-000001, CIK 0002003070SEC EDGAR · filed Dec 11, 2023
  2. Public recordNIH RePORTER projects 1R43DK112475-01, 1R44GM158472-01 and 5R44GM158472-02NIDDK and NIGMS · FY2016 to FY2026
  3. Public recordHHS TAGGS award detail, R44GM158472, period of performance December 15, 2024 to November 30, 2026HHS TAGGS
  4. Public recordNSF SBIR Phase I award 2126430NSF · Dec 2021 to Nov 2022
  5. Public recordPatents assigned to Synvivia, Inc., engineered cyclic peptides for viral vector productionJustia Patents
  6. IndependentSynvivia Inc company profile, SBIR awardee database, revenue and venture funding fieldsinKnowVation · profile last edited Jun 17, 2022
  7. IndependentSynvivia company research note on fundraising sourcesWhiteford Research Biobase · 2024
  8. CompanySynvivia company page, status Active, team size 4, Summer 2016 batchY Combinator directory · accessed Sep 22, 2026
  9. CompanySynvivia, Inc. startup profile, exclusive license and timelineUC Berkeley IPIRA · accessed Sep 22, 2026
  10. CompanySynvivia websiteInternet Archive capture · Jun 14, 2026

Compiled from SEC, NIH, NSF and other public records and published reports as of September 22, 2026. Form D notices report offerings under Regulation D; amounts reflect the filing date and may not capture later sales. Federal award figures are amounts obligated by fiscal year and are not equity. Healthcare Venture Capital Fund holds no position in Synvivia. This page is not an offer to sell or a recommendation to buy any security.