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Max Leisten

Founder & CEO, Protopia
Raleigh, North Carolina,United States
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Max Leisten's Overview

Total Experience22 years
CompanyProtopia
CountryUnited States

Max Leisten is the Co-founder and CEO of Profluent, a biotechnology company pioneering the use of artificial intelligence, particularly deep generative models, to design and develop novel proteins and gene editors for therapeutic applications. He has a strong background in AI research, having previously worked as a Research Scientist at Google Brain and Salesforce Research. Max holds a PhD in Bioengineering from the UC Berkeley – UCSF Graduate Program, where his work focused on the intersection of machine learning and biological systems. He is passionate about leveraging AI to accelerate breakthroughs in biology and medicine, aiming to create next-generation therapies.

Professional Summary

Max Leisten's work history includes a series of influential roles in various companies. Here is a detailed list of his professional journey:

Protopia - Founder & CEO (2016 to Present)
Netsertive - Head of Product (2012 to 2016)
JAGGAER - Market Director, Higher Education (2009 to 2012)
ChannelAdvisor - Senior Product Manager (2005 to 2009)
Thomson Reuters - Product Manager (2002 to 2005)

Notable Achievements

Co-founder and CEO of Profluent

Successfully co-founded Profluent in 2022, securing $9 million in seed funding and subsequently a $35 million Series A round to advance the development of AI-designed proteins and gene editing technologies. Leads the company's vision and execution in applying generative AI to create novel therapeutics.

Development of OpenCRISPR-1

Under his leadership, Profluent developed and open-sourced OpenCRISPR-1, the first large language model-generated gene editor with experimentally validated, high-accuracy editing capabilities across diverse human genomic loci, demonstrating the power of AI in creating functional biological tools.

AI Research Contributions at Google Brain & Salesforce

Made significant contributions to machine learning research during his tenure as a Research Scientist at Google Brain and Salesforce Research, focusing on areas relevant to sequence modeling and generative AI, which formed a strong foundation for his work at Profluent.

PhD in Bioengineering

Completed a PhD from the prestigious UC Berkeley – UCSF Graduate Program in Bioengineering, specializing in applying computational and machine learning techniques to biological challenges.

Educational Background

MBA, Marketing

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Kenan-Flagler Business School

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Notable news
Hiring actively
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Company Overview

Protopia
Total employees75
HeadquartersPalo Alto
Founded2020

Protopia AI specializes in enabling enterprises to train AI/ML models on sensitive data without compromising privacy or security. Their core technology, Stained Glass Transform™, allows organizations to utilize their full data assets for AI development while adhering to data privacy, security, and residency regulations, thereby unlocking significant value from previously inaccessible data. This helps businesses innovate faster and more responsibly with AI.

Protopia Funding Information
$18M - Total Funding Raised
$16M - Most recent funding amount
2 - Number of funding rounds
25 Oct, 2023 - Latest funding round
Lead Investors:
AT&T Ventures
Rally Ventures
Morpheus Ventures
DataTribe
Alumni Ventures

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