Creative Destruction Lab

11/05/2026

Axoft (CDL'23), a neurotechnology company, has raised an oversubscribed $55M Series A.

Axoft is developing implantable brain-computer interfaces built on its proprietary Fleuron material, a substance up to 10,000x softer than the polyimide used in existing brain implants, enabling better biocompatibility and higher-quality neural data capture.

Axoft, a neurotechnology company, today announced it has raised an oversubscribed $55 million Series A led by C.P. Group Innovation. Alumni Ventures, the Sta...

05/05/2026

Stoked Bio (CDL'25), a Canadian biotech company focused on the development of novel anti-infectives and cancer therapeutics, announced an oversubscribed $2.5M seed round.

Their biology-first approach integrates proprietary, disease-specific training data with machine learning to identify compounds with real biological effect and strong translational promise, instead of just a statistical signal.
https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/stoked-bio-announces-the-closing-of-seed-financing-round-811583085.html

30/04/2026

CDL-London and Imperial College London are launching a Healthcare Robotics stream for founders commercializing innovations in medical robotics, active sensing, and physical AI. The program supports the development of hardware-enabled technologies that bring cutting-edge precision and automation into hospitals, homes, and communities to deliver personalized healthcare at scale.

Professor Mary Ryan, Vice Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial College London said: “Healthcare systems worldwide are under increasing pressure, and robotics-enabled technologies will play a critical role in transforming how care is delivered. Imperial is a world leader in embodied intelligence, and this new Healthcare Robotics stream will bring together expertise across engineering, robotics, computing, medicine and entrepreneurship to accelerate the development of intelligent, real-world solutions.

Professor Peter Todd, Dean of Imperial Business School said: “As Europe’s only leading business school embedded in a world-class STEM university, we uniquely connect science and business. Through initiatives like CDL and the new Healthcare Robotics stream, we convene business thinking, scientific rigour and technological expertise to shape a better and healthier future for humanity.”

Applications are currently open. Read more here:

CDL Healthcare Robotics will support founders commercializing medical robotics, active sensing, and AI embodied hardware to address global healthcare capacity gaps.

28/04/2026

Genomic medicine is transforming how diseases are diagnosed and treated. But as demand for genetic testing grows, health systems struggle with testing workflows that can’t keep up.

A coalition of five leading Canadian health institutions and genomic medicine software company, PhenoTips (CDL'20), has launched a $5.4M initiative to bring AI into the genomic testing process.

PhenoTips and five leading health institutions form the CIPHER network to build the AI infrastructure that precision medicine needs to scale.

20/04/2026

TippingPoint Biosciences (CDL'25) has closed an oversubscribed $4.5M seed round to advance a breakthrough drug discovery platform that targets epigenetic protein interfaces long considered “undruggable.”

TippingPoint plans to develop and de-risk its epigenetic interface platform by first focusing on an aggressive pediatric brainstem tumor called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG). The disease is one of the deadliest childhood cancers and is driven by profound disruptions of chromatin biology, making it a compelling target for the company’s approach.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260331496937/en/TippingPoint-Biosciences-Raises-%244.5M-Seed-to-Drug-Hidden-Epigenetic-Targets-in-Deadly-Pediatric-Brain-Cancer

16/04/2026

Starfish Space (CDL'21) has raised over $100M in a Series B funding round. The round was raised on the back of significant technical and commercial traction. Starfish has Otter missions under contract with the U.S. Space Force, SDA, NASA, SES, and others. The company has successfully launched and operated three demonstration missions in orbit, including the Remora mission in 2025 and the ongoing Otter Pup 2 mission, and is on track to fly its first full Otter missions later this year.
https://www.starfishspace.com/press-release/starfish-space-raises-over-100-million-series-b/

14/04/2026

Mangrove (CDL'18) has received a conditional approval of a $21.88M non-repayable contribution from Natural Resources Canada for their work piloting an end-to-end spodumene to battery grade lithium conversion process and completing FEL engineering for a proposed 20,000 tpa lithium refining facility in Canada.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has conditionally approved a $21.88M non-repayable contribution through their Global Partnerships Initiative to support Mangrove Lithium’s work piloting an end-to-end spodumene to battery grade lithium conversion process and completing FEL engineering for our propo...

06/04/2026

Xona Space Systems (CDL'21) has closed a $170M Series C round. The funding will accelerate production of the Pulsar satellite constellation, a Low Earth Orbit navigation system that delivers stronger, more precise, and more secure positioning signals than legacy GPS, while remaining compatible with existing devices.
https://www.xonaspace.com/news/series-c

31/03/2026

Nearly a decade after going through the CDL program at CDL-Toronto, Xanadu become the first company in Creative Destruction Lab's 13-year history to reach the public markets — listing on Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker XNDU.

CDL Mentors Barney Pell, Ken Nickerson, and Dennis Bennie recall their experience working with Christian Weedbrook during these formative years.

“Looking back, CDL was one of the first places where I was treated as a founder, not just a researcher. That shift in identity matters more than people realize. I was asked questions that my academic peers would never think to ask. That was uncomfortable at first, and that mindset stayed with me for years and is a part of how Xanadu got here,” says Christian Weedbrook, Founder and CEO of Xanadu.
https://creativedestructionlab.com/blog/xanadu-goes-public/

31/03/2026

Revolve Surgical (CDL'20) has received FDA clearance for its surgical robot platform. It provides robotic assistance to augment surgeons performing soft tissue procedures, with its table-mounted system that can integrate into existing clinical workflows.
https://www.massdevice.com/revolve-surgical-fda-clearance-surgical-robot/

27/03/2026

Xanadu Quantum Technologies (CDL'17) officially began trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange, making it the first publicly listed pure-play photonic quantum computing company in the world.

Congratulations to CEO Christian Weedbrook who rang the opening bell at the Nasdaq today, and the entire Xanadu team for this momentous achievement.