NEW YORK – Stratum Biosciences, a biotechnology pioneer at the intersection of artificial intelligence and dermatology research, announced the closing of a $2M seed funding round backed by the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York and Skin Angels, the world’s largest network of early-stage skin and dermatology investors.
Stratum was co-founded in 2024 by dermatologist Dr. Ross Lane Pearlman and dermatopathologist Dr. Buu Duong, both leaders in their specialties for integrating technology and AI into skin research and workflows. The investment will be used to scale the company’s proprietary AI-powered skin biology discovery platform, mining over 200,000 real skin samples for novel insights and translating findings into accelerated product development.
“As a dermatologist, I see every day that the biggest gap in skin innovation is our limited understanding of skin biology,” said Dr. Ross Pearlman, CEO and Co-founder of Stratum Biosciences. “With modern AI, we can finally uncover the mechanisms hidden within skin that can translate into entirely new solutions to skin health.”
AI-Powered Research Paves the Way for Better Understanding of Skin
Central to Stratum’s expansion is participation in NVIDIA’s Inception program, designed to nurture startups transforming industries through technological advancement. By leveraging NVIDIA’s computing resources, Stratum plans to rapidly mine its proprietary skin biopsy database to identify novel biomarkers and insights that have previously eluded traditional research and development methods.
“Our skin is a window to our bodies, and Stratum’s biobank holds the keys to new, undiscovered targets for anti-aging and beyond,” said Dr. Buu Duong, President and Co-founder. “We now have the tools to unlock these insights and build solutions at scale. Beyond observational research, we are now decoding the skin’s biological language to redefine how the industry approaches longevity and health.”
Stratum’s SkinSync™ platform has already uncovered significant insights into the structure and function of skin that challenge long-held assumptions about the skin barrier.
“The scientific progress this team has been able to make in such a short amount of time has been remarkable,” said Chief Scientific Officer Dr. David Osborne, former co-founder of Arcutis (ARQT).
“It’s exciting to take my career experience and use the platform and methodology created by Stratum to rewrite our understanding of dermatology and fundamentally improve human skin care.”
Scaling the SkinSync™ Platform for Global Partnerships
Over the past 12 months, Stratum Biosciences has successfully validated its approach by partnering with global CPG leaders and subsidiaries to develop novel composition-of-matter actives and formulations with optimized delivery systems and bioavailability using SkinSync™, Stratum’s proprietary AI-powered discovery platform. Expected products target the most pressing needs in skincare and dermatology, including hyperpigmentation and skin longevity.
With this new funding, Stratum is rapidly building partnerships focused on skin biology discovery with translation into novel ingredient and formulation technology. Stratum is currently based out of Johnson and Johnson’s accelerator in New York, JLabs@NYC, located in SoHo.
