Fauna Systems

The company addresses where conventional approaches are technically insufficient or economically infeasible. The business model is expected to be a combination of “biobots as a service”, where bespoke biobots are designed and manufactured by Fauna at scale, and providing the design and manufacture capability in the form of a licensed version of the Anatomical Compiler.

Fauna Systems holds exclusive licenses to the foundational biobot intellectual property and maintains deep, ongoing research collaborations with xenobots’ inventors. The company has exclusive license to the AI-driven automated laboratory (the “Anatomical Compiler”) that is planned to systematically discover and produce biobots. Version 1, developed under an $8 million Department of Defense grant, is central to the R&D-driven customer discovery underway in dialogue with potential commercial partners.

Fauna raised a $1.9M seed round in March of 2025. Investors included Draper Associates, Meach Cove Capital (John Abele’s family office), Boom Capital, Sparta Capital and other family offices and individuals.

Fauna Systems is the first of what can be many businesses commercializing innovations from the Levin Lab and the Bongard Lab and, in time, other principal investigators exploring new territory in agential engineering.

People at Fauna Systems

• Mike Levin (founder) is the Vannevar Bush Professor of Biology, director of Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology at Tufts University, and Co-Director of The Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms.
• Josh Bongard (founder, Board) is Veinott Professor of Computer Science at the University of Vermont, director of the Morphology, Evolution & Cognition Laboratory, and Co-Director of The Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms.
• Randy Castleman (Board, acting CFO) is a longtime investor in emerging technologies. He is the Managing Partner of Fieldstone Resources, a single-family office. Prior, he co-founded and co-managed an institutionally-backed venture firm and then built private investment programs for larger family and multi-family offices. He met Levin and Bongard during his tenure as an EIR at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He holds a BA from Princeton and an MBA from the University of Virginia.
• Naimish Patel (Board, outgoing CEO) is a technology executive with over 30 years of experience spanning company-building, operations, and life sciences investing. Naimish will remain on the Board when a new CEO is found, providing important continuity and transmission of institutional knowledge. He has held roles at Sycamore Networks and GridCo, and has invested through General Catalyst, Hyperplane Ventures, and as an angel. As CTO of Sycamore Networks, he shaped product strategy and architecture through the company’s IPO.
• Eugene Durenard (Board) is CEO of Hyperbolic Holdings, a Swiss-based investment holding and management company specialized in life sciences and healthcare innovation. He is co-founder of several companies and serves on a handful of executive and advisory Boards.
• Tom Luly (business development) is a former EIR at DARPA, with a background in corporate innovation consulting, early-stage tech commercialization, and venture studio strategy; he previously helped launch MIT’s in-house venture studio. He holds an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Fauna’s Next CEO

Since the 1Q25 seed round, Naimish Patel has laid the groundwork, securing the IP for biobots and MomBot, establishing the sponsored research agreement, and beginning to execute the R&D-driven customer discovery that is a hallmark of an early-stage tech bio startup.

Customer discovery conversations, with accompanying R&D to prove essential biobot capabilities, are underway in sectors such as precision agriculture and aquaculture, ex vivo biopsy, and environmental remediation.

Fauna’s next CEO will inherit a remarkable scientific foundation and broad commercial canvas. Their remit is about listening, exploring, and figuring out — through direct engagement with potential customers and partners — where the intrinsic capabilities of biobots meet real commercially significant needs.

Fauna has engaged Occam Global, a top-tier search firm with deep experience finding leadership for innovative tech bio companies.

CEO SpecsFauna 3Q26

Fauna’s Commercialization Plan

Fauna is systematically exploring commercial applications that provide non-incremental value as substitutes for existing processes (e.g. environmental remediation, ex vivo biopsy) or entirely new capabilities (e.g. non-invasive monitoring and modulation of bioreactors for synthetic biology applications, defense-related sensing and readout).

This exploration is conducted in a feedback loop involving dialogue with commercial partners (typically at the CTO or divisional R&D level) and with the Levin and Bongard labs via the Sponsored Research Agreement.

Functional requirements for economically valuable opportunities — large, growing markets — are tested against known or anticipated biobot capabilities in rigorously designed experiments. Each experiment adds to Fauna’s understanding of inherent out-of-the-box capabilities and of those which could be engineered by modifying morphology and/or incorporating standard synbio circuitry. The Anatomical Compiler is central to this iterative process, which also informs what capabilities it should have in future versions.

Fauna’s Financing Plan

Fauna raised $1.9M in seed financing in March of 2025. The company has a low gross monthly burn ($25–50k) plus SRA and licensing payments which together give it a runway of ~24+ months.

However, the Board strongly believes that Fauna must accelerate the pace of its R&D-driven business development to take more shots on goal. To do so requires leasing lab space and hiring a handful of technicians.

Additionally, Fauna is commencing a CEO search. The CEO will require some amount of additional runway to feel comfortable they can fulfill their vision for the company. The Board estimates that $2–3 million will be adequate. The Board also expects some of the current investors to consider participation.

A Series A of $10–25 million — variability driven by the nature of initial commercial traction — is anticipated ~36 months from this interim funding. The Board anticipates this would be a priced equity round.