Therapeutics & drug discovery · Antibiotic resistance
Evolvere BioSciences
An Oxford spinout designing protein based antibiotics meant to stay ahead of bacterial resistance instead of losing to it. The company is still preclinical, and most of what is known about its money and its science comes from founder interviews, a university incubator, and startup databases rather than filed evidence.
A hackathon prize, then a lab
Evolvere Biosciences began in the summer of 2021 when it won Oxford University Biotech Society's Biohackathon. The prize was three months of free lab space in the BioEscalator, the university's life sciences incubator on the Old Road Campus, plus a consumables budget of £1,000. That was enough to run a proof of concept, and by June 2022 the company had moved in as a full BioEscalator resident.
The company was incorporated at Companies House on May 14, 2021 as “ĒVOLVERE BIOSCIENCES LTD,” company number 13396961, with a registered business activity of research and experimental development on biotechnology.
The problem
Antibiotics lose their power because bacteria evolve resistance to them, and the pipeline of new antibiotics has been thin for years. The BioEscalator's own account of the company put the stakes in stark terms: antibiotic resistance is predicted to become the third biggest killer globally by 2050, with 10 million deaths a year, and to add $1.2 trillion a year in direct healthcare costs. Right now, the article said, resistant infections already kill 700,000 people annually.
Evolvere's answer is to try to get ahead of the mutation rather than chase it. The company says it combines co-evolutionary protein-protein interaction datasets with AI models to forecast how a bacterium is likely to mutate in response to a drug, then design a molecule that is precise enough to kill the pathogen without harming a patient's own cells or their broader microbiome. The pitch is a drug that is expensive for bacteria to escape, because the escape route itself would cripple them.
Founders
The three founders met as students at the University of Oxford. Piotr Jedryszek studied Biology at St John's and is now pursuing a PhD in Interdisciplinary Biosciences there, with research touching molecular dynamics simulations and nanopore engineering; he serves as chief technology officer. Adam Winnifrith studied Biochemistry at Corpus Christi and is chief executive; his academic work sits at the intersection of protein AI and automation, and he is a co-author, alongside University of Oxford statistician Carlos Outeiral and Stanford's Brian Hie, of a 2024 review on generative AI for de novo protein design, published in Current Opinion in Structural Biology and listing Evolvere Biosciences at the Old Road Campus as an affiliation. Weronika Ślesak studied Biology at Worcester College and is an evolutionary biologist who has worked in microbiology labs at Oxford and the Institut Pasteur on high throughput experimental evolution and antibiotic resistance genes.
A fourth name appears on the company's Companies House record: Oliver James Waterhouse, appointed a director on May 27, 2022. Waterhouse previously founded Base Genomics, an Oxford Sciences Innovation portfolio company built around a DNA methylation detection technology, which Exact Sciences acquired in 2020 for a total consideration of $410 million, according to PharmaTimes. Evolvere's own promotional material describes him as a serial biotech entrepreneur backing the team; the Companies House record shows the relationship is formal, not just advisory, since he holds a director's seat.
From hackathon to Y Combinator
After the 2021 to 2022 BioEscalator stint, Evolvere kept a low public profile for a couple of years, raising money the way many early biotech spinouts do: angel checks, prize money, and friends and family, according to Jedryszek. The next visible marker came in 2024, when the company joined Y Combinator's Summer 2024 (S24) batch, one of a small number of European companies in that cohort. Startup databases VCBacked and Tracxn both record a pre-seed round, last updated in their systems in September 2024, putting total funding at $500,000 with Y Combinator as the named investor. Neither a press release nor a Companies House filing that discloses this figure has been found.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Incorporation | Ēvolvere Biosciences Ltd, company number 13396961, incorporated May 14, 2021. SIC code 72110, research and experimental development on biotechnology. Registered office is now in London; the company's lab affiliation, per a 2024 journal listing, is the Innovation Building, Old Road Campus, Oxford. | Public record |
| Directors | Piotr Karol Jedryszek and Adam John Winnifrith, directors since May 14, 2021. Weronika Anna Ślesak, director since May 14, 2021. Oliver James Waterhouse, director since May 27, 2022. All four remain active directors as of the most recent confirmation statement, dated May 13, 2026. | Public record |
| Y Combinator | Listed as a company in YC's Summer 2024 batch, per its Y Combinator company profile. | Company-stated |
| Total funding | $500,000 reported, most recently updated by data providers in September 2024, with Y Combinator named as the sole investor. No press release or Companies House filing was found that discloses this figure or names other backers. | Aggregator data |
| Share allotments | Two SH01 statements of capital are on file, following allotments on May 27, 2022 and July 24, 2024, but UK statements of capital report only the nominal (par) value of shares, GBP 1.02 and GBP 1.07 respectively, not the price paid or any premium. In 2025 the company filed resolutions twice to reduce its issued share capital, most recently recording a nominal value of GBP 0.148283. None of this discloses how much money actually changed hands. | Public record |
| CEO's published work | Adam Winnifrith co-authored “Generative artificial intelligence for de novo protein design,” a review in Current Opinion in Structural Biology (April 2024), listing an Evolvere Biosciences affiliation. It is a field review, not a study of Evolvere's own antibiotic candidates, and no company-specific paper was found in PubMed. | Public record |
| FDA or clinical evidence | No FDA 510(k) or PMA record and no registered clinical trial were found for Evolvere as of September 25, 2026. The company is preclinical. | Not found |
| Federal or UK public grants | No NIH, NSF, CARB-X, or Innovate UK award tied to Evolvere Biosciences was found in web searches as of September 25, 2026. The only documented non-dilutive support is the 2021 hackathon prize of three months' lab space and a £1,000 consumables budget. | Not found |
Read plainly: the corporate scaffolding checks out. Evolvere is a real, active UK company with a stable founding team still on the board five years in, and its CEO has a genuine publication record in the field it works in. What has not been independently verified is the antibiotic science itself and the size of the money behind it. No paper, patent summary, or regulatory filing describes results from Evolvere's own drug candidates, and the widely repeated $500,000 funding figure traces back to startup databases, not to the company or to Companies House.
What to watch
- A Companies House filing or press release that names investors and discloses the size of the September 2024 round.
- Any CARB-X or Innovate UK grant announcement, given that both fund exactly this kind of antibacterial research and neither has surfaced for Evolvere so far.
- A first peer-reviewed paper or patent describing results from Evolvere's own antibiotic candidates, rather than a field review by its CEO.
- Whether the 2025 share capital reductions accompany a new financing round or a cleanup of the cap table.
In their words
“By creating a platform for developing therapeutics that can out evolve bacteria, we want to change the way we think about treating bacterial infections and help prevent future epidemics. The current model of an infinite race between new antibiotics and the evolution of resistance induces reimbursement hurdles, which slow down the development of new antibiotics. The system fails to prevent deaths, which already total 700,000 annually. Our therapy could be game-changing.”
Weronika Ślesak, co-founder, quoted by BioEscalator, 2022 · University incubator
“I realised I might be really on to something when several much more experienced and much smarter people expressed excitement for the idea and validated my key assumptions.”
Piotr Jedryszek, co-founder and CTO, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
“Winning the OUBT Biohakctahon gave us 3 months of free lab space. This allowed us to create our proof of concept experiments and catalysed the company to form.”
Piotr Jedryszek, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
“Angel investors, winning prizes and friends and family.”
Piotr Jedryszek, on how the company was funded, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
“When I saw our first prototype work.”
Piotr Jedryszek, describing his most satisfying moment in business, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
“Character traits tend to be more important than technical skills.”
Piotr Jedryszek, on lessons learned as an entrepreneur, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
“Working on an important issue and spending time with my amazing co-founders.”
Piotr Jedryszek, on his favorite part of being an entrepreneur, EnSpire Oxford interview, 2023 · Interview
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordCompany overview, ĒVOLVERE BIOSCIENCES LTD, company 13396961
- Public recordOfficers, ĒVOLVERE BIOSCIENCES LTD
- Public recordPersons with significant control, ĒVOLVERE BIOSCIENCES LTD
- Public recordFiling history, ĒVOLVERE BIOSCIENCES LTD
- Public recordWinnifrith A, Outeiral C, Hie BL. Generative artificial intelligence for de novo protein design. PMID 38663170
- InterviewPiotr Jedryszek, co-founder of Evolvere Biosciences
- University incubatorIntroducing Evolvere Biosciences
- IndependentHow Evolvere BioSciences Is Advancing Antibiotics
- IndependentOxford start-up Base Genomics acquired by Exact Sciences
- AggregatorEvolvere BioSciences Funding & Investors
- AggregatorEvolvere BioSciences company profile and team
- CompanyEvolvere BioSciences company profile
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
