Funding profile · Epigenetic diagnostics tools

Epinoma

A Y Combinator company with roughly $5 million of reported seed capital, no SEC filing of any kind, and no federal grant. Almost the entire capital record is secondhand.

$5MSeed raised to date, reported by GenomeWeb (Sep 2025)
0Form D filings on SEC EDGAR, company or vehicle
$0Federal grant money on record (NIH, NSF, SBIR)
4Tracked headcount, down from about 7 in Jul 2021

Data as of September 24, 2026. Company-reported figures are labeled.

Rounds at a glance

When Round Amount Investors Source
Summer 2021 Y Combinator, batch S21 Not disclosed Y Combinator YC listing
Oct 21, 2021 Seed investment announced Not disclosed SeedtoB Capital; George Church named as an early backer Company release
By Sep 2025 Seed, cumulative About $5M Not itemized in the report Independent
Tracked Named backers Not disclosed Asymmetry Ventures, DVC, SeaX Ventures, SeedtoB Capital, and one unnamed Data aggregator
2018 to 2026 Federal grants $0 None found at NIH, NSF or SBIR Public record
2018 Student grant, pre-company $100,000 tentative over four years Tata Institute of Genetics and Society, to the UC San Diego iGEM team University

What the filings show

No filings · SEC EDGAR · searched Sep 24, 2026

Company search
No matching companies for Epinoma
Full text search
0 hits for the phrase Epinoma across all filed documents
Form D
None, by the company or by any pooled vehicle named for it
CIK
None assigned
Federal awards
NIH RePORTER organization search returns no projects; no NSF award found
Implication
Every capital figure below comes from reporting, a press release or a tracked dataset, not from a filing

Reading the filings

  1. The absence is the finding.A company that has raised about $5 million over five years has filed nothing with the SEC. That is legal and common: an issuer selling to accredited investors under Section 4(a)(2), including through Y Combinator standard instruments and uncapped safes that have not converted, files no Form D at all. It does mean there is no filed offering amount, no sold figure, no investor count and no list of related persons to check any announcement against.
  2. The only sized number is a reporter’s.GenomeWeb wrote in September 2025 that the firm “has raised around $5 million in seed funding so far.” The October 2021 SeedtoB release gave no amount. The Venture Capital Journal item that same week gave no amount. There is no primary document putting a dollar figure on any round.
  3. No non-dilutive money at all.A tools startup licensing university chemistry is the standard profile for SBIR support, and Epinoma has none. NIH RePORTER returns nothing, and the records pull found no NSF award. That leaves $5 million of equity carrying a multi-year chemistry engineering program with no grant subsidy.
  4. Headcount says the burn is small.Tracked employee counts went from about 7 in July 2021 to 4 by February 2024 and were still 4 in September 2026. Four people for about $5 million over five years is a long runway and a slow build, which is consistent with a company that has not raised since the seed. One tracker puts the last raise at roughly 64 months before September 2026.
  5. The core asset is a license, not a patent estate.The chemistry belongs to the University of Chicago, licensed exclusively for research and diagnostic applications. The only patent application naming the founders, US 20200291483, is held by the Regents of the University of California and covers the earlier student workflow, not EpiAmp. No granted patent or published application was found under Epinoma’s own name. An acquirer would be buying a license position plus process know-how.
  6. The capital gap against the epigenetic writing companies is two orders of magnitude.Tune Therapeutics closed more than $175 million in January 2025 and nChroma Bio formed with $75 million in December 2024. Those companies write epigenetic marks as therapy. Epinoma reads them as a reagent, which is a far cheaper business, but it also means it competes on price and data with New England Biolabs, Illumina, Biomodal, Watchmaker and a second University of Chicago spinout, Ellis Bio.

Commercial signals

Signal Detail Source type
Licensing Exclusive license from the University of Chicago through the Polsky Center, research and diagnostic applications, taken in 2022. Independent
Product EpiAmp, whole-genome and targeted methyl-preserving amplification. Early access program said in Sep 2025 to be planned for late 2025 or early 2026. No launch announcement found. Company-stated
Customers Pilot studies with several companies. Only Vesica Health is named. No commercial contract disclosed and no revenue reported. Partner-stated
Advisors George Church named as an early backer and scientific advisory board member. Company-stated
Evidence No peer reviewed Epinoma paper, no preprint, no whitepaper found as of Sep 24, 2026. Sensitivity claims rest on spike-ins and simulation. Not found
Regulatory No FDA record and no registered clinical trial. The product is sold as research reagent chemistry. Public record

What to watch

  • A first Form D. It would be due within 15 days of the first sale of any Regulation D round and would be the first primary capital document this company has ever produced.
  • The promised preprint and whitepaper, which would move the performance claims from private data packages into the public record.
  • Conversion of a named pilot, starting with Vesica Health, into a supply or co-development agreement.
  • Headcount moving off four, the cheapest available signal that a raise has landed.
  • Any SBIR application, which would put a federal reviewer’s judgment on the technology for the first time.

The Epinoma story on Healthcare DiscoveryHealthcare Discovery

Related companies

Sources

  1. Public recordSEC EDGAR company search and full text search for Epinoma, no resultsSEC · Sep 24, 2026
  2. Public recordNIH RePORTER organization search for Epinoma, no projectsNIH · Sep 24, 2026
  3. Public recordUS patent application 20200291483, applicant the Regents of the University of CaliforniaUSPTO · published Sep 17, 2020
  4. IndependentEpinoma to Commercialize Methylation-Preserving Amplification Chemistry Developed at UChicagoGenomeWeb, Andrew P. Han · Sep 19, 2025
  5. UniversityThe Missing Piece: Epinoma Advances Novel Disease Detection TechPolsky Center, University of Chicago · Jul 29, 2025
  6. IndependentSeedtoB Capital invests in EpinomaVenture Capital Journal, Iris Dorbian · Oct 22, 2021
  7. DataEpinoma headcount, investor list and last raiseCrustdata · accessed Sep 2026
  8. UniversityUndergraduate team wins 2nd place at global synthetic biology competitionUC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering · Dec 10, 2018
  9. IndependentEpigenetic biotech raises bumper round to the Tune of $175M to fund entry into clinicFierce Biotech · Jan 13, 2025
  10. IndependentChroma Medicine, Nvelop Therapeutics Merge as nChroma BioGEN · Dec 12, 2024
  11. CompanySeedtoB Capital Invests in Innovative Epigenetics Startup EpinomaPR Newswire · Oct 21, 2021
  12. CompanyEpinoma home, technology, news and careers pagesEpinoma · accessed Sep 24, 2026

Compiled from SEC, NIH, USPTO and other public records and published reports as of September 24, 2026. Form D notices report offerings under Regulation D; an issuer relying on Section 4(a)(2) files none, so the absence of a filing is not evidence that no money was raised. Healthcare Venture Capital Fund holds no position in Epinoma. This page is not an offer to sell or a recommendation to buy any security.