At 2048 Ventures, we are obsessed with the future and look to invest in early-stage companies redefining industries through data and technology. Lately, we’ve been focused on drug delivery, a key infrastructure layer and a persistent bottleneck in the therapeutics space.

We now have an unprecedented ability to measure and model biology, from perturbation screens to single-cell and spatial omics. In parallel, toolkits like CRISPR and other modalities are expanding what we can do inside a cell. What hasn’t kept pace is our ability to deliver these tools precisely and safely to the right tissues and cells.

We believe delivery is the next major unlock in therapeutics and anticipate several inevitabilities:

1. Cell programming will increasingly happen in vivo, decreasing the need for ex vivo manipulation. We’re starting to see this trend with in vivo CAR-T.
2. The unprecedented resolution in mapping biological systems will inform targeting of highly specific cell subtypes and coordinated interventions that modulate several cell types and pathways in parallel.
3. We will gain access to durable and controllable interventions in chronic disease: therapies that work for years (or permanently), and can be switched on, off, or modulated as needed.

To truly unlock this future, delivery technologies must evolve into highly programmable platforms that are redosable, cell-specific, non-immunogenic, manufacturable at scale, and capable of efficient intracellular delivery across diverse payloads.

We’re interested in platforms that solve the delivery gap directly and have delivery as their secret sauce.

Bottlenecks and opportunities created

We have identified several bottlenecks and opportunities:

• Cross-species translation remains a major bottleneck as delivery vehicles that work in animal models often fail in humans. There is an opportunity to build human-first discovery engines early in development.
• Several delivery vehicles accumulate in the liver, limiting therapeutic efficacy and contributing to dose-limiting hepatotoxicity. There is an opportunity to engineer delivery systems to redirect tropism to tissues and cells of interest.
• Many delivery platforms elicit immune responses that prevent redosing or require immunosuppression. There is an opportunity to build stealth or immune-orthogonal vehicles with novel chemistries or immune cloaking strategies.
• Achieving controlled co-delivery of therapeutic cargoes often requires significant re-engineering of the delivery system. There is an opportunity to design truly modular scaffolds that accommodate a range of payloads and enable combination therapies in the same cell.

We’re proudly backing companies building against these challenges. Nionyx is directly tackling cross-species translation by engineering AAVs through a human-first discovery platform in kidney explants, enabling cell-level precision. TwoStep Therapeutics is advancing a modular, highly specific integrin-binding peptide to enable selective delivery to virtually any solid tumor.

Manufacturability sets the ceiling for impact for delivery technologies

Manufacturing isn’t just a back-end problem, it’s part of the moat for delivery technologies. Biological innovation must be paired with a feasible, scalable, economically rational manufacturing strategy. Many delivery platforms fail not for lack of biological promise, but because they can’t scale.

Vector production is often the dominant driver of COGS. For example, for some AAVs, a 500 L batch can cost $3-7 million, translating to $1-2 million per dose in certain indications. High COGS, long lead times, inconsistent yields, and process complexity can easily derail otherwise compelling delivery platforms.

In addition, the economics really matter, especially when GMP-grade vector production can account for up to 50% of COGS and 60% of total manufacturing cost. Using expensive or low-yield vectors for a large, prevalent disease often breaks the model. Conversely, ultra-rare diseases can’t amortize fixed costs or benefit from scale.

The most successful delivery companies choose indications where batch size, pricing, and COGS naturally align. We believe owning a cost-efficient, reproducible process can be as valuable as owning the biology itself, and teams that treat manufacturing as core IP, not an afterthought, will be more defensible.

How delivery platforms unlock repeatable revenue

True platform value requires vertical validation, where the delivery system is proven through real therapeutic assets. In practice, this means demonstrating that the delivery mechanism works end-to-end in humans.

In our view, the most valuable delivery platforms are those where this vertical validation can be achieved with only minor adaptation, enabling rapid iteration across new assets once the core mechanism is proven. This creates asymmetric upside for platform developers: one validated targeting mechanism, many potential assets and partners.

Companies like ABL Bio (deals with Sanofi, GSK, Lilly), Vect-Horus (deals with Novo Nordisk, Ionis, Johnson & Johnson), Evox Therapeutics (deals with Takeda, Lilly) and many others exemplify how one delivery scaffold can anchor multiple pharma parternships, each applying the same core technology to different therapeutic cargos.

That said, these partnerships carry dependency risk. Ultimately, success often hinges on the partner’s therapeutic payload, clinical strategy, and indication choice. A platform with multiple partnerships sets up the company for maximum chance of success.

Startups we want to fund

We want to invest in startups developing:

• Novel modular and programmable delivery scaffolds that are highly specific, redosable, easy to manufacture, and compatible with a wide range of payloads and targeting ligands.
• Delivery systems capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier to achieve deep tissue penetration and specific targeting, ideally via systemic administration.
• High-resolution tissue and cell profiling tools that track delivery outcomes at single-cell or spatial resolution, enabling rational design of delivery technologies.
• Human tissue models for the discovery of delivery vehicles in physiologically relevant contexts, de-risking the lack of translatability from animal models to humans.
• Oral delivery systems for complex biologics that can withstand the gastrointestinal environment and enable non-invasive dosing routes.

In addition, we look for companies that design delivery platforms together with a manufacturable path: high yield, predictable quality, and economics that make sense for the chosen indication.

If you are a founder working in the space, we'd love to connect: 2048.vc/pitch-us