Pendulum Therapeutics Raises $54 Million to Meet Surging Customer Demand

Strong Loyalty Among Subscribers: After Five Months, 74% of Key Customer Segment Remain Active Users

Company Created New Product Category, Filling Market Gap Between Supplements and Prescription Drugs

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Apr 07, 2021, 09:51 ET

SAN FRANCISCO, April 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pendulum Therapeutics – a biotech company improving health through products targeting the microbiome – today announced a $54 million investment led by Meritech Capital with participation from existing investors including Sequoia Capital, True Ventures and Khosla Ventures. This Series C round nearly doubled the entirety of Pendulum's previous raises and brings the total venture capital raised to $111 million.

Colleen Cutcliffe, PhD, cofounder and CEO, Pendulum Therapeutics

As lead investor, Meritech General Partner Craig Sherman will take a seat on the Pendulum Board of Directors alongside Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia, and Adam D'Augelli, a partner at True Ventures.

"We think Pendulum is a next generation pharma company doing next generation gene sequencing," said Sherman. "Pendulum could be another 10x Genomics, Datadog, Snowflake or Roblox, which are Meritech investments that went public in the last two years. Pendulum feels like it could be that, because they are creating something that's truly differentiated and could truly change a person's life."

"Craig, Roelof and I are excited about Pendulum because they are using the microbiome in an entirely new way, to create a never-before-seen product," said D'Augelli. "There's a huge white space here. With many supplements, there's no way to tell if they're even working, while medicines are synthetic and can have side effects. At Pendulum, ingredients are sourced from the microbiome that naturally lives within our bodies, and their formulas are rigorously tested for safety and effectiveness. This new hybrid product Pendulum has created is safe, requires less capital than a drug to bring to market, and could be incredibly beneficial for millions of people."

Pendulum introduced its first product, a medical probiotic called Pendulum Glucose Control, in January 2020. It is the only probiotic clinically shown to lower blood sugar spikes and A1C levels in people with type 2 diabetes, even on top of metformin. Results of Pendulum's gold standard clinical trial were published in BMJ Open Diabetes, a prestigious peer-reviewed journal.

Pendulum Glucose Control is welcome news for more than 120 million people living with diabetes and prediabetes. The company reported a surge in demand in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021, and high customer satisfaction across several measures*:

74% of subscribing customers with type 2 diabetes are still using the product after five months
86% of customers surveyed report lowered A1C
86% of customers surveyed report improved gut health
79% of customers surveyed report lowered glucose levels/spikes

"We are grateful for our customers, as well as our investors who continue to acknowledge our ground-breaking research into the microbiome," said Colleen Cutcliffe, PhD, cofounder and CEO of Pendulum Therapeutics. "While our direct-to-consumer path is more nimble than our pharma peers, we will never cut corners. Pendulum is a team of accomplished scientists, and our products will always go through rigorous testing to establish efficacy. We believe consumers can – and should – demand hard-core scientific results from any company that is making claims about health benefits."

Cutcliffe said the new venture capital funding will be used to increase the manufacturing and sales of Pendulum Glucose Control; ramp-up manufacturing of pipeline products to address the management of other chronic diseases; and conduct additional research – including clinical trials – to further prove the company's primary hypothesis: The microbiome is the most exciting and promising frontier in health and nutrition science.

For more information and testimonials from customers, please visit www.pendulumlife.com.

*Customers surveyed by Pendulum from April - July 2020. N=38 customers with type 2 diabetes who had taken Pendulum Glucose Control for three months or more. Survey respondents received a $40 Amazon gift card for completing the survey.

About Pendulum Therapeutics

Pendulum Therapeutics believes therapies developed using evidence-based microbiome science and DNA sequencing can help heal the body from within. Armed with 13 patents and 42 pending, the company introduced its flagship product Pendulum Glucose Control, a medical probiotic, in 2020 and demonstrated its efficacy in lowering blood sugar spikes and reducing A1C in a published clinical trial. Founded in 2013 by a diverse team of scientists with deep microbiology, biochemistry, computational, and clinical expertise, Pendulum has raised $111 million to date from Meritech Capital, Sequoia Capital, True Ventures, Khosla Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and Mayo Clinic among others. Pendulum Therapeutics is headquartered in San Francisco.

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Media Contact:
Nora Murray
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419-250-0016

SOURCE Pendulum Therapeutics