# Timothy Craven

> Timothy Craven is the co-founder and CEO of Insamo, a Berkeley-based biotech using machine learning, ultra high-throughput biology, and parallel chemistry to design membrane-permeable, orally available macrocyclic peptides with antibody-like binding. A computational chemist trained in the Nobel-winning lab of David Baker, Craven started Insamo from a grad-school concept with $20,000 of his own money and grew it into a Berkeley-Sydney team backed by a $12M seed from Playground Global, venBio, and Merck's MRL Ventures Fund. His pitch is blunt: turn $30,000 injectable biologics into pills.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Insamo
- **Organizations:** Insamo, University of Washington (former), Institute for Protein Design (former), U.S. FDA (former)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.Sc., dual major in Physics and Chemistry, The College of New Jersey, M.Sc. in Bioinformatics, Georgetown University, PhD in Biology (computational design and synthesis of biomimetic molecular architectures), advised by Richard Bonneau and Kent Kirshenbaum, New York University, MBA, MBA
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Insamo, a drug-discovery platform company, Raised a $12M seed round from Playground Global, venBio, and Merck's MRL Ventures Fund (2024), Co-author on the Science paper 'Comprehensive computational design of ordered peptide macrocycles' (2017)

## Career timeline

- **pre-grad school** — Research roles at NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
- **post-Georgetown** — Research associate / junior research fellow at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
- **PhD** — Doctoral research at NYU on computational peptide design under Richard Bonneau and Kent Kirshenbaum
- **postdoc** — WRF Innovation Fellow / Translational Investigator at the University of Washington and Institute for Protein Design, in the labs of David Baker and Jay Shendure
- **2022** — Co-founded Insamo with Toby Passioura and Glen McIntyre, starting with a ~$20,000 personal investment
- **2024-02** — Insamo emerged from stealth with a $12M seed round from Playground Global, venBio, and MRL Ventures Fund
- **2025** — Insamo profiled as a leading AI biotech at UC Berkeley's Bakar Bio Labs

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Insamo, a drug-discovery platform company
- Raised a $12M seed round from Playground Global, venBio, and Merck's MRL Ventures Fund (2024)
- Co-author on the Science paper 'Comprehensive computational design of ordered peptide macrocycles' (2017)
- Trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of David Baker, 2023 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
- Built a Berkeley-Sydney team developing membrane-permeable, orally available macrocyclic peptides

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Insamo featured among the top AI-driven biotechs at UC Berkeley's Bakar Bio Labs, where Craven framed the company's goal as affordable, pill-form antibody alternatives.
- **2024-02** — Insamo launched publicly with $12M in seed funding to develop best-in-class membrane-permeable macrocyclic peptides.

## Links

- Website: https://insamo.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-craven-phd-a6240b158

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/timothy-craven
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-21