Last week, Founders Fund partner Delian Asparouhov realized he hadn’t checked on his genetics in a while. He clicked open a dashboard created by Nucleus Genomics, a Founders Fund-backed startup that gets saliva samples sequenced and then compares the DNA results to extensive data linking health issues to genes. Within seconds, he concluded that he had a predisposition for schizophrenia, a sky-high IQ, and prostate cancer. “Bummer,” he shrugged.
If Asparouhov’s reaction seems nonchalant, it’s only because he and the Nucleus team he backed are dreaming much, much bigger. Imagine a world where your medical treatments are tailored to your genetics or where every couple gets their DNA sequenced before having kids together — or a world where, as Asparouhov imagines, dating apps have a “kid simulation” that meshes your genetic tests together and shows you what a child might inherit.
Today, Nucleus is a step closer to that future. The company, founded by 25-year-old Kian Sadeghi, announced a $14 million Series A, bringing its total funding to about $32 million. Investors like Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six, Balaji Srinivasan and SpaceX alum Achal Upadhyaya have all rallied behind Sadeghi’s vision for widely available genetic testing.
“DNA is actually the kind of ultimate health test,” Sadeghi said. “So one swab and you get your analysis on about 800 plus conditions. And that’s going to be rapidly growing over the next several months, until it’s effectively every common and rare disease known.”
Nucleus is possible because the cost of genome sequencing has plummeted in recent years. In 2007, genome sequencing cost close to $1 million. Today, Nucleus, staffed by a team of PhDs and genetic experts, charges $400 to send a saliva sample to a third party sequencer and then analyze the results, telling users a host of potential illnesses they may be at risk for. Sadeghi believes that, in the next five years, “the cost of sequencing the genome is going to be negligible,” and everyone will have “their genome on their smartphone.”
Sadeghi’s dream began with tragedy. One night, his cousin died in her sleep from a previously unknown genetic condition. The loss permanently altered his life’s path. He dropped out of college and moved home, where his schedule was as follows: wake up, meditate for an hour, scribble gene-related company plans in a notebook for twelve hours, meditate for another hour. “I do believe in the soul,” he reflected. “I’ve meditated every day for, I think, five years.”
His year of work and meditation birthed Nucleus — and sent Sadeghi into the orbit of Silicon Valley’s most famous contrarians. He first met Peter Thiel at Hereticon, the Founder Fund bash that celebrates all that is controversial (Sadeghi recalls a particularly exciting exorcist). It was a fitting place to meet, considering all the controversy that Sadeghi would court.
Last year, Sadeghi launched Nucleus IQ, which tells users how much their genetics correlate with markers for high intelligence. Sadeghi puts a huge asterisk next to that claim: there is still much we don’t know about the connection between genes and IQ, and, even if we did, genetics can only account for so much, while one’s environment handles the rest.
Geneticist Sasha Gusev called into question the accuracy of Nucleus’s IQ tests (Sadeghi then published a lengthy defense), and others pointed out that Nucleus’s IQ tests could lead to discrimination and stigmatization. Sadeghi’s approach is also markedly different from competitors: Back in 2018, 23andMe told the MIT Technology Review it purposefully wouldn’t release consumer information around genetics and intelligence for fear of “misinterpretation.”
But Sadeghi and Asparouhov believe that the average American should have as much information about their genetics as possible. Asarouhov finds the hesitancy around Nucleus IQ “very odd,” adding that if we’re able to acknowledge genetic advantages in athletes (like, say, Michael Phelps’ astonishing wingspan), why wouldn’t we do the same for IQ? “Experts claim that they know what’s best for you,” he said. “But I think it’s best to just give consumers the information that’s available to them and let them decide.”’
As Nucleus acquires more customers, Asparouhov says the company’s insights will get even better, the results on a Nucleus dashboard automatically updating with new information. “At some point maybe there will be, like, phenotypic reporting, where you tell Nucleus, I have blue eyes, I have brown hair, maybe you come in for an IQ test, etc, and that actually improves the model,” he said.
When asked if linking things like blue eyes, blonde hair, and IQ could be interpreted as eugenics, he clarified with a laugh, “I said brown hair!”
Then, miming the same hand motion that Elon Musk performed following President Trump’s inauguration, he joked, “My heart goes out to you.”