Embryo-editing start-ups keep attracting funding despite shutdowns and ethical risks

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Embryo-editing funding and risks

Highlights

Preventive raised nearly $30 million in 2023 from investors including Sam Altman and Brian Armstrong, while Nucleus Genomics received backing from Founders Fund.
Despite shutdowns of Bootstrap Bio and Manhattan Genomics, ethical and regulatory debates persist, with a proposed 10-year moratorium and most jurisdictions prohibiting germline editing for reproduction.
Nucleus Genomics already sells $9,999 embryo screening for more than 30 diseases and traits in over 165 clinics, pursuing a commercial route ahead of direct embryo-editing start-ups.

Funding persists as companies regroup

As reported by Financial Times, U.S.-based Bootstrap Bio and Manhattan Genomics both ceased operating within the past year, the first after failing to secure more funding and the second after a dispute between its founders over where to base business operations. Neither company published a scientific breakthrough, but newer entrants and adjacent reproductive genetics groups are still drawing investor backing.

Preventive, a San Francisco-based embryo-editing start-up, raised nearly $30 million last year from investors including OpenAI chief Sam Altman and his husband, as well as Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Nucleus Genomics, backed by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, is funding additional academic research into germline gene editing with the goal of eventually offering the technology commercially.

In March, Cathy Tie, who co-founded Manhattan Genomics, launched Origin Genomics just months after Manhattan ceased operating. Bootstrap Bio founder Chase Denecke said the company closed because it could not raise more money, adding that fundraising is difficult in a field where few venture capitalists understand either the science or the route to market.

Denecke also said Bootstrap Bio's closure was unrelated to the August 2025 arrest and later indictment of former chief science officer Qichen Yuan on attempted child sex trafficking charges. He said Yuan had already moved from that role to a part-time advisory position at the time and that he learned of the charges only after the company shut down in late 2025; Yuan has pleaded not guilty.

Regulatory barriers and ethical debate shape the market

The companies are pursuing methods to alter DNA in human embryos, initially to prevent inherited disease, but the field remains highly contentious because some supporters also see scope to influence traits such as intelligence. That has kept germline editing under close scrutiny since Chinese scientist He Jiankui said in 2018 that he had created the world's first gene-edited babies, a case that led to his imprisonment for three years.

Last year, three gene and cell therapy groups proposed a 10-year moratorium on heritable human genome editing. Tim Hunt, chief executive of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, which supported the moratorium, said the technology risks becoming a slippery slope toward eugenic or quasi-eugenic uses, while University of California Berkeley genetics professor Fyodor Urnov said some claimed disease-curing missions mask a desire to create improved babies.

Supporters argue the economics could eventually favor embryo editing over some existing treatments. Somatic gene therapies can cost $2 million or more, while some designer baby start-ups have suggested embryo editing could one day cost around $5,000 per embryo, although many jurisdictions still prohibit germline editing for reproductive purposes.

That regulatory uncertainty is still deterring part of the market. Eriona Hysolli, Manhattan Genomics' other co-founder, said it may be holding back investment, and LongGame Ventures general partner Will Harborne said ethical concerns have kept his firm from backing embryo gene editing in the near term.

Even so, the broader reproductive genetics market is expanding. Preventive said in a statement that it will first establish whether embryo editing to treat disease can be done safely before commercializing the technology, while Nucleus Genomics is already selling embryo screening for more than 30 diseases and traits, including eye color, IQ and baldness, and testing prospective parents for more than 2,000 inherited conditions.

Nucleus charges $9,999 for its screening service and says it is available in more than 165 clinics worldwide. By building a screening business before offering editing services, the company may gain an earlier commercial route into a market that direct embryo-editing start-ups do not yet have.

In our earlier article on global cybersecurity funding in Q3 2026, we noted that total investment rose sharply on the back of larger late-stage rounds even as the number of deals declined. We also highlighted how AI- and identity-security startups attracted the biggest checks, alongside a pickup in major M&A that signaled continued investor and buyer appetite despite a tougher environment for smaller players.

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