Sujal Patel’s data storage company, Isilon Systems, was one of the only tech startups to raise investment funds in the dark winter of Seattle’s early 2000s dot-com bust. Now, he’s announcing he’s raised money for a second company, in biotech this time, in the midst of a global pandemic.
"I think I only perform well under pressure,” Patel said. In his latest venture, called Nautilus Biotechnology, he’s tackling a more difficult problem than computer storage. The goal is to build a device that can map patients’ proteins more rapidly and cheaply, allowing drug developers to use that data to find targeted treatments for diseases like cancer, and let doctors monitor flare-ups of conditions like multiple sclerosis.