Earli
Redwood City, California–based Earli is, in many ways, a quintessential Silicon Valley startup. As is often the case, there’s not only a Stanford connection but a grand ambition. The company is developing a “synthetic biopsy” platform that aims to detect cancer at its earliest stages by programming cancer cells to reveal themselves and even self-destruct. The company aims to unravel what Siddhartha Mukherjee’s 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning book “The Emperor Of All Maladies” described as “one of the most significant scientific challenges faced by our species.” That is, the company aims to distinguish malignant growth from normal growth with precision. On its website, Earli describes its intent as designing “programmable genetic constructs” that turn on only in cancer cells and force them to ultimately self-destruct.
Earli, which employs a synthetic targeting platform that reprograms cancer cells, has recently secured a strategic investment from Accenture Ventures. This investment is not merely financial; it underscores confidence in Earli’s potential to revamp early cancer detection. “Our hope is to enable early diagnosis, which we know leads to better outcomes,” said Kailash Swarna, managing director at Accenture Ventures in an interview. “We aim to use our technological capabilities to amplify the science that Earli is working on, driving the greatest degree possible of early diagnosis.”
Before the strategic investment from Accenture, Earli secured funding from a roster of notable investors. The list includes Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, Perceptive Advisors, Casdin Capital, Sands Capital, Menlo Ventures, ZhenFund (China), and Marc Benioff.
Origin story
Earli traces its origins to the research of the late Professor Sam Gambhir at Stanford Medical. Years before Accenture decided to invest in the firm, Swarna recollects being “personally aware of the work at Professor Gambhir’s lab, which is where Earli comes from,” Swarna shared. “Sam was a force of nature.”
Gambhir, driven to find new ways to detect cancer early, pioneered the development of PET reporter genes — a technology that could capture subtle molecular signs of disease, even before they become visible through conventional methods. This drive was personal: after his wife, Aruna, faced and overcame breast cancer, their teenage son, Milan, was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, the same aggressive brain cancer Gambhir had studied in the lab. While Gambhir himself lost his battle with cancer in 2020, his spirit continues to fuel Earli’s mission.
Cyriac Roeding, a German-born entrepreneur who had recently sold his mobile shopping app, Shopkick, for $250 million, co-founded Earli with Gambhir and David Suhy in June 2018. Roeding reached out after reading about Gambhir’s work at Stanford’s Canary Center and his personal connection to cancer. The two Silicon Valley residents, living just three minutes apart, began meeting for Saturday morning breakfasts at a local cafe. These conversations evolved into brainstorming sessions at Gambhir’s home, where Suhy, a Ph.D. biochemist who has more than two decades working in virology and biotechnology, joined them. Suhy had previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at Benitec Biopharma, where he led the development of RNAi-based drugs for treating diseases like hepatitis C and oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy. He also led the world’s first clinical trial using non-withdrawable RNAi in humans, directly injecting a ddRNAi compound into patients with hepatitis C virus
The company’s scientific advisory board is a who’s who of biotech and medicine. It includes Nobel Laureates Jim Allison and Lee Hartwell, along with Bob Langer, whose over 1,495 patents have been licensed to more than 400 companies, and Sangeeta Bhatia, director of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine at MIT. Also in the mix are Amy Abernethy, former Principal Deputy Commissioner of FDA as well as Phil Greenberg, co-founder of Juno Therapeutics and head of Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Alan Ashworth, president of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCSF and a pioneer in cancer genetics.
Engineering cancer’s surrender
Kailash Swarna
Earli’s approach, dubbed the “Synthetic Biopsy,” could pave a new way forward in early cancer detection. Instead of relying on naturally occurring markers that may be faint or absent in early-stage cancers, Earli’s technology reprograms cancer cells to produce specific, detectable signals. “The basic idea is to program cancer cells to express non-native markers, which can then be detected using high-precision imaging like PET scans,” Swarna explained. This approach essentially forces cancer to reveal itself at very early stages, even before tumors become visible through conventional methods like X-rays or CT scans. This approach, combining cell programming techniques (similar to those used in mRNA vaccines) with high-sensitivity detection methods, could spot multiple cancer types through non-invasive screening, even for tumors too small to be detected by current methods. As Petra Jantzer, Ph.D., a senior managing director at Accenture Life Sciences, noted in a statement, Earli’s method offers “significant advantages to biopharma companies by improving the precision and efficacy of new treatments and diagnostics.”
Applying data science to cancer detection
Swarna notes that the Earli-Accenture partnership goes beyond financial investment; it’s a strategic collaboration that exploits Accenture’s expertise in data science and AI to advance Earli’s Synthetic Biopsy technology. Earli’s technology generates a considerable amount of data, and Accenture’s data science background will help the firm sift through the data to refine detection models.
“We see several data science and AI opportunities: systematically capturing all the data and potentially predicting which cancer cells are likely to behave in certain ways,” Swarna said. “Training AI models to become more predictive in how to approach this process.” This includes developing analytics platforms for large-scale image processing, applying AI and machine learning to refine cancer detection models, enhancing imaging resolution and assessment, and predicting cancer cell behavior. “We see several data science and AI opportunities: systematically capturing all the data and potentially predicting which cancer cells are likely to behave in certain ways,” Swarna said.
Laying the groundwork for collaboration
The collaboration will begin with a deep dive into understanding each other’s capabilities, as Swarna explained. Both companies recognize that realizing the full potential of Earli’s technology requires a long-term commitment—one that extends beyond typical short-term investment horizons. Accenture is prepared for this, acknowledging that Earli “is quite some ways away from seeing the fruition of their work.” But sometimes the journey is its own reward. Swarna noted that it strives for a win-win dynamic when forging partnerships. “We look for opportunities where we can add value to these companies, not just what they bring to us. If we can’t add value, we shouldn’t participate in the discussion,” he said. “Our approach with all our investments is to use the proximity to the founders and bright scientific minds to educate ourselves, contextualize how we can help with technology, and use that technology to support their core mission,” Swarna said. “It’s very synergistic.”
Filed Under: machine learning and AI, Oncology
