

Startup · United States
Valthos
HQ New York, NYFounded 202411-50 employeesUpdated
Biodefense software company building AI systems that characterize biological sequences to identify threats and help design medical countermeasures; its Grove platform turns sequencing data into threat assessments.
Funding1 round · $30.0M
- Equity raised
- $30.0M
- Latest
- $30.0MSeed · Oct 24, 2025
| Announced | Stage | Amount | Valuation | Lead investors | Other investors | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 24, 2025 | Seed | $30.0M | — | Founders Fund, Lux Capital, OpenAI Startup Fund | — | Confirmed |
- $30.0MOct 24, 2025
Raised counts equity rounds; debt, secondary sales and grants are totaled separately. Amounts in other currencies are converted at the announcement month's average rate. A ~ marks an estimated or converted amount.
Systems2
- ArborAn evaluation layer that tests new AI models on operational data before they are incorporated into the deployed system.
- GroveModel-agnostic platform that turns sequencing data into biological threat assessments, running in the cloud or on edge hardware; benchmarked on DoW-provided and Los Alamos National Laboratory datasets.Prototype—
Newest unveiled first. Systems that belong to a government program link to the program page, where variants, costs and contracts are.
Capabilities3
| Technology | Role | Maturity | TRL | Notes | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI-assisted medical countermeasure design | Developer | Development | — | — | Reported |
| AI pathogen sequence characterization | Developer | Prototype | — | — | Reported |
| CBRN defense and security screening | Developer | — | — | classify_sectors run 37, haiku, taxonomy 2026-10-18b: Biodefense AI software that identifies biological threats and designs countermeasures; the defense use is stated, but the customers are not named. | Reported |
- Developerclassify_sectors run 37, haiku, taxonomy 2026-10-18b: Biodefense AI software that identifies biological threats and designs countermeasures; the defense use is stated, but the customers are not named.—Reported
Maturity and TRL describe this organization's work; the field-wide maturity is on each technology's page.
Supply Chain1 facility
Facilities1
| Facility | Kind | Location | Status | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valthos headquarters, New York | Headquarters | New York, United States | Operating | Confirmed |
- Valthos headquarters, New YorkHeadquarters · New York, United StatesOperatingConfirmed
People5
| Person | Role |
|---|---|
| Kathleen McMahon · LinkedIn ↗ | Co-founder |
| Tess van Stekelenburg | Co-founder |
| Kathleen McMahon · LinkedIn ↗ | Director |
| Kathleen McMahon · LinkedIn ↗ | Chief Executive Officer |
| Tess van Stekelenburg | Director |
Hiring Observations5 observed listings
A sample of observed listings, not a total vacancy count. Availability may have changed since collection. Categories are inferred from job titles.
Company Metrics
Employee-profile counts reflect LinkedIn profiles associated with the company, not verified headcount. One observation establishes a baseline; it does not establish growth.
Sources13
Show all 13 sources and supporting evidence
Profile2
- 1
- 2OtherBlack Flag 100.2
Black Flag · Supports Organization
“Valthos builds AI-powered biodefense software that rapidly characterizes biological threats and updates medical countermeasures in real time.”
Systems1
- 3
Valthos · Sep 30, 2026 · Supports Organization technology, System, System · system input:edge-ai-compute
“On DoW-provided data, Grove moved from sample input to readout in approximately 20 minutes in the cloud and 53 minutes on NVIDIA Jetson edge hardware.”
Technologies1
- 4CompanyValthos Raises $30M from OpenAI, Lux Capital, Founders Fund to Build Next-Generation Biodefense
PR Newswire · Oct 29, 2025 · Supports Funding round · amount, Organization, Organization technology, Role
“Valthos announced $30 million in seed financing led by OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund”
Funding2
- 5Regulatory filingValthos Inc. Form D (accession 0002124500-26-000002)
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · Apr 1, 2026 · Supports Facility, Funding round · amount, Organization · hq city
“Principal place of business: 119 5th Ave, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003”
- 6CompanyIntroducing Valthos
Valthos · Oct 24, 2025 · Supports Funding round · announced on
“We raised $30 million from the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund”
People1
- 7Regulatory filingForm D: Valthos Inc.
SEC EDGAR · Apr 1, 2026 · Supports Role
“Related persons: Kathleen McMahon (Executive Officer, Director); Tess Van Stekelenburg (Director); signed by Kathleen McMahon, Chief Executive Officer”
Other6
- 8DatabaseValthos — linkedin profile
Linkedin via Bright Data · Supports Organization · company size, Organization · logo, Organization · url, Organization metric · employees in linkedin, Organization metric · followers
“{"company_size": "11-50 employees"}”
- 9
LinkedIn via Bright Data · Supports Job posting · job listing
“{"company_id": "109315130", "company_name": "Valthos", "company_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos?trk=public_jobs_topcard-org-name", "job_employment_type": "Full-time", "job_location": "San Francisco, CA", "job_posted_time": "7 months ago", "job_posting_id": "4379970049", "job_seniority_level": "Entry level", "job_summary": "Software Engineer Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature’s evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT’s Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. We are seeking software engineers to design and implement a platform that will allow Valthos to bring frontier methods to the end users, scientific and technical. Your day-to-day experience will range from implementing complex distributed systems, managing container-based scalable infrastructure, building REST APIs, integrating open source solutions, understanding the needs of our users and adapting our software to suit. You'll collaborate closely with technical and non-technical counterparts to understand our developers' and customers' problems and build software and infrastructure to tackle them. The Role Work with the AI Engineers and Computational Biologists to design and build high-scale, opinionated APIs that are data/GPU intensive Prototype and develop interactive workflow UIs for life-science users Iterate on and create data visualization tools that provide users with model results and context to understand them Work with users to develop SDK for technical users Develop and maintain a secure cloud environment for Valthos data and results. Build distributed systems that efficiently/predictably process large-scale user data using both CPUs and GPUs Build and maintain the backend infrastructure required for scaling out storage and compute Design and build Valthos storage and search systems. Expect rapidly increasing scale and latency requirements. Develop and maintain the systems and services that underpin the productivity of our development teams. Everything from our internal dev environments to managing automated deployments to our production infrastructure. Qualifications (required) Experience implementing or working on distributed systems and their associated technologies (Kubernetes, Docker, etc) Working knowledge of the full application stack (Web UX frameworks, API design and development, data modeling, RDBs, etc). Preference for working in a fast-paced, autonomous environment Qualifications (preferred) Experience working with AWS or other IaaS providers. Experience working with large scale data and it’s associated technologies (parquet, pandas, etc) Experience building data pipelines and asynchronous data processing Experience working with biological data (sequences) and bioinformatics tools Contributions to open-source projects If there is a fit, we’ll schedule two technical interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you’ll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team. Show more Show less", "job_title": "Member of Technical Staff - Software Engineer", "timestamp": "2026-10-05T04:47:40.702Z"}”
- 10
LinkedIn via Bright Data · Supports Job posting · job listing
“{"company_id": "109315130", "company_name": "Valthos", "company_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos?trk=public_jobs_topcard-org-name", "job_employment_type": "Full-time", "job_location": "New York, NY", "job_posted_time": "7 months ago", "job_posting_id": "4379974010", "job_seniority_level": "Entry level", "job_summary": "Software Engineer Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature’s evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT’s Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. We are seeking software engineers to design and implement a platform that will allow Valthos to bring frontier methods to the end users, scientific and technical. Your day-to-day experience will range from implementing complex distributed systems, managing container-based scalable infrastructure, building REST APIs, integrating open source solutions, understanding the needs of our users and adapting our software to suit. You'll collaborate closely with technical and non-technical counterparts to understand our developers' and customers' problems and build software and infrastructure to tackle them. The Role Work with the AI Engineers and Computational Biologists to design and build high-scale, opinionated APIs that are data/GPU intensive Prototype and develop interactive workflow UIs for life-science users Iterate on and create data visualization tools that provide users with model results and context to understand them Work with users to develop SDK for technical users Develop and maintain a secure cloud environment for Valthos data and results. Build distributed systems that efficiently/predictably process large-scale user data using both CPUs and GPUs Build and maintain the backend infrastructure required for scaling out storage and compute Design and build Valthos storage and search systems. Expect rapidly increasing scale and latency requirements. Develop and maintain the systems and services that underpin the productivity of our development teams. Everything from our internal dev environments to managing automated deployments to our production infrastructure. Qualifications (required) Experience implementing or working on distributed systems and their associated technologies (Kubernetes, Docker, etc) Working knowledge of the full application stack (Web UX frameworks, API design and development, data modeling, RDBs, etc). Preference for working in a fast-paced, autonomous environment Qualifications (preferred) Experience working with AWS or other IaaS providers. Experience working with large scale data and it’s associated technologies (parquet, pandas, etc) Experience building data pipelines and asynchronous data processing Experience working with biological data (sequences) and bioinformatics tools Contributions to open-source projects If there is a fit, we’ll schedule two technical interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you’ll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team. Show more Show less", "job_title": "Member of Technical Staff - Software Engineer", "timestamp": "2026-10-05T04:47:38.465Z"}”
- 11
LinkedIn via Bright Data · Supports Job posting · job listing
“{"company_id": "109315130", "company_name": "Valthos", "company_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos?trk=public_jobs_topcard-org-name", "job_employment_type": "Full-time", "job_location": "San Francisco, CA", "job_posted_time": "7 months ago", "job_posting_id": "4380139857", "job_seniority_level": "Mid-Senior level", "job_summary": "Applied AI Engineer Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature’s evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT’s Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. We are seeking a highly skilled, data-centric Applied AI Engineer to develop and apply state-of-the-art ML methods for assessing and responding to biological threats and for rapidly designing precision biologics. The Role Contribute to crafting and executing on the Valthos-wide research and development roadmap Develop, build, and apply modeling approaches—including adapting and post-training biological frontier models—for tasks in biological security and the design of precision biologics Develop, build, and apply evaluation frameworks to rigorously assess model performance on key tasks Interrogate models to understand their biological learnings, capabilities, and limitations Collaborate closely with computational biologists to understand the signal and artifacts inherent in biological data, and to create and curate datasets Collaborate closely with software engineers to build, deploy, and scale model training and evaluation infrastructure Visualize and communicate results within Valthos and externally Work with customers and external collaborators to understand their needs and be an effective representative of Valthos Embrace learning about areas—technical and non-technical—across Valthos Stay up-to-date on the state-of-the-art methods at the intersection of AI and biology Qualifications (required) Experience with data-centric development and evaluation of ML models Highly proficient in Python and deep learning libraries (e.g., PyTorch) Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS) and distributed systems Strong understanding of probability and statistics Qualifications (preferred) Proven ability to design, implement, and evaluate new ideas in ML Experience with pre- or post-training language models, developing reasoning agents, and/or time series modeling Experience working with biological data or other types of noisy and heterogenous datasets Experience with ML-centric bioinformatics and structure-based tools (e.g., AlphaFold) Experience building data pipelining and training infrastructure Contributions to open-source projects If there is a fit, we'll schedule two technical interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you'll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team. Show more Show less", "job_title": "Member of Technical Staff - Applied AI Engineer", "timestamp": "2026-10-05T04:47:38.539Z"}”
- 12
LinkedIn via Bright Data · Supports Job posting · job listing
“{"company_id": "109315130", "company_name": "Valthos", "company_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos?trk=public_jobs_topcard-org-name", "job_employment_type": "Full-time", "job_location": "New York, NY", "job_posted_time": "7 months ago", "job_posting_id": "4380153587", "job_seniority_level": "Mid-Senior level", "job_summary": "Applied AI Engineer Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature’s evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT’s Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. We are seeking a highly skilled, data-centric Applied AI Engineer to develop and apply state-of-the-art ML methods for assessing and responding to biological threats and for rapidly designing precision biologics. The Role Contribute to crafting and executing on the Valthos-wide research and development roadmap Develop, build, and apply modeling approaches—including adapting and post-training biological frontier models—for tasks in biological security and the design of precision biologics Develop, build, and apply evaluation frameworks to rigorously assess model performance on key tasks Interrogate models to understand their biological learnings, capabilities, and limitations Collaborate closely with computational biologists to understand the signal and artifacts inherent in biological data, and to create and curate datasets Collaborate closely with software engineers to build, deploy, and scale model training and evaluation infrastructure Visualize and communicate results within Valthos and externally Work with customers and external collaborators to understand their needs and be an effective representative of Valthos Embrace learning about areas—technical and non-technical—across Valthos Stay up-to-date on the state-of-the-art methods at the intersection of AI and biology Qualifications (required) Experience with data-centric development and evaluation of ML models Highly proficient in Python and deep learning libraries (e.g., PyTorch) Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS) and distributed systems Strong understanding of probability and statistics Qualifications (preferred) Proven ability to design, implement, and evaluate new ideas in ML Experience with pre- or post-training language models, developing reasoning agents, and/or time series modeling Experience working with biological data or other types of noisy and heterogenous datasets Experience with ML-centric bioinformatics and structure-based tools (e.g., AlphaFold) Experience building data pipelining and training infrastructure Contributions to open-source projects If there is a fit, we'll schedule two technical interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you'll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team. Show more Show less", "job_title": "Member of Technical Staff - Applied AI Engineer", "timestamp": "2026-10-05T04:47:38.969Z"}”
- 13
LinkedIn via Bright Data · Supports Job posting · job listing
“{"company_id": "109315130", "company_name": "Valthos", "company_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos?trk=public_jobs_topcard-org-name", "job_employment_type": "Full-time", "job_location": "New York, NY", "job_posted_time": "4 months ago", "job_posting_id": "4412960351", "job_seniority_level": "Mid-Senior level", "job_summary": "Generalist / Business Operations Valthos Inc. Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature's evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT's Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use. Operations at Valthos is the function that keeps the company moving. It covers the full range: keeping the office running, closing fundraising rounds, talking to customers, and building out the operational infrastructure underneath it all. It is a generalist role by design. On any given day, you might be troubleshooting a broken A/C unit before lunch, building a financial model for the board deck after, and project-managing a vendor onboarding by the end of the day. We are a small team working on problems that matter. We need someone who will pick up whatever needs picking up, execute well, and do the work no one else wants to do, while also being trusted with some of the most sensitive and strategic decisions the company makes. You will work directly alongside the head of operations and founders on the highest-leverage problems we face. You will own projects end-to-end, from definition, to solutioning, to implementation, across every function: finance, recruiting, people, legal, facilities, IT, and whatever else comes up. Early on, you will hold many hats simultaneously. Over time, as we grow, the hats you choose to keep will define your role and likely seed an entire function at Valthos. Whether you aspire to be an entrepreneur, a future operator, or to build a category-defining company's operating spine, we believe Valthos is the best place, with the best colleagues, to learn how. You will learn how to unpack a problem, understand the costs and consequences of its solution, and ship. You will make decisions independently, alongside a small team that will support and challenge you as you grow. The Role Own the company's day-to-day operations: facilities, IT, office management, vendor management, travel, and anything else required to keep the team productive Build the financial backbone of the company: construct and maintain financial models, scenario-plan budget and runway, partner with external accounting on close, and run spend, payroll, and treasury as needed Stand up core business infrastructure, including equity administration, benefits, payroll, corporate policies, compliance, and vendor systems, choosing tools pragmatically and replacing them when we outgrow them Support recruiting and people operations end-to-end: source candidates, run scheduling, manage offers and onboarding, and help architect the culture and operating cadence of the company Lead special projects that do not fit neatly into anyone else's job description, from standing up security and clearance workflows, to opening a new office, to running internal offsites and all-hands Provide operational support to commercial and government engagements as needed, helping the team move proposals, contracts, and procurement workflows across the finish line Serve as the operational face of Valthos with external partners (investors, regulators, contractors, and vendors), and represent the company with the same bar of care as a founder would Close the feedback loop between the team and our partners: translate what you learn from investors, customers, and vendors into the decisions and priorities that shape how we run Qualifications (required) 3+ years in a high-ownership, high-tempo operational role, such as early-stage startup operator, chief of staff, investment banking, management consulting, private equity, or venture capital Demonstrated ability to own projects end-to-end in ambiguous environments, with minimal structure and minimal supervision Strong financial and analytical fluency; comfortable building models in Excel, running scenario analyses, and reasoning from numbers under time pressure Exceptional written and verbal communication. You will draft memos, investor updates, and internal and external materials that need to meet the bar of the most senior people in the room High attention to detail and organization. You are the kind of person who makes sure the details no one else is tracking are handled High ownership and a bias to action. You would rather unblock the team by fixing something yourself than wait for someone else to do it Comfort operating across extremes: one hour on the floor of the office, the next with a senior government stakeholder or a top-tier investor Willingness to travel when needed, including to customer sites Qualifications (preferred) Experience at a high-growth startup, ideally as one of the first non-engineering hires Experience setting up finance and people ops systems from scratch Experience with early-stage fundraising Experience in defense tech, national security, or government contracting is a plus, but not required If there is a fit, we will schedule behavioral and case-based interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you will work on a scoped project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team. Show more Show less", "job_title": "Operations - Generalist / Business Operations", "timestamp": "2026-10-05T04:47:40.361Z"}”
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