Neuro AI’ founder Sean Escola on searching for his next idea on the Merantix AI Campus

Sean moved to Berlin and was thinking about his next move. We said: come join us and think about it here!

Sean Escola

For anyone building in AI, the Merantix AI Campus is a one-stop-shop for idea sharing, networking, and collaboration. So when I was introduced to Sean Escola, an American biotech founder and computational neuroscientist who recently moved to Berlin, I said he should come hang out for a few weeks here as he pondered his next venture in the “Neuro AI” space.

Sean joined us recently at the AI Campus to bounce ideas off of our Merantix Capital team and connect with the various parts of our Merantix Group — from AI solutions business Merantix Momentum to our Merantix Capital portfolio companies, like fellow biotech founder Greg Vladimer, as well as other residents here on campus.

This is a no-strings-attached offer we extend to seasoned serial entrepreneurs looking to build an AI venture in their domain. We are happy to let you tap into our ecosystem to help you on your way. You never know, maybe we’ll end up working on something new together via our venture studio at Merantix Capital, where we build and invest in category-defining application layer AI companies.

I recently sat down with Sean about his background and to ask him about his time working from the AI Campus. Our edited conversation is below.

Can you tell me a little bit about your professional journey?

I have somewhat of an unconventional background. I’m a clinical psychiatrist, and I led a computational neuroscience lab as an assistant professor at Columbia. I founded a biotech-meets-machine-learning company in San Francisco in 2017 called Herophilus, and we ultimately hired an external management team, although I stayed involved and was on the board. We had a business relationship with a company called Genentech for co-development for some drugs, but they actually got excited about our technology platform and decided in 2023 that they would acquire it.

The sale of the company was a good transition moment for my family. My wife is German and we wanted to be back in Germany. I moved to Berlin and tapped into my investor network, and I heard really good things about Merantix and the AI Campus. Then you and I had lunch and you suggested I come hang out on campus.

What are you looking to build next?

My last company was squarely in biotech, using a lot of machine learning applications to try to do data analysis of these large scale data sets that we were collecting for the discovery of new drugs. It’s modern techniques, but still a standard playbook.

A direction I’m now exploring, although it has an overlapping set of skills, is how we can use ideas about how the brain works as well as datasets that are collected from human or animal brains to train AI models in order to endow them with more human-like cognitive capabilities.

In other words, rather than using AI for neuroscience, it’s using neuroscience to build better AI.

What did interacting with the Merantix Group do for you?

I got a sense that you and Rasmus are really excited and helpful to founders who are familiar with one system and now thinking about doing something in a different system. For me, I understand the startup scene in the US but needed to understand more about what company formation looks like here.

There’s a utility to partnering with a team like Merantix who are very intimately familiar with the intricacies of building in Europe, and also at the same time recognize how to maintain efficiencies from the American system.

A major thing on my mind as a potential founder is access to good talent, and that’s really something that Merantix offers. You can really see it on campus, whether that’s through events or for instance the clear technical engineering competence at Momentum — and how they work with your portfolio companies.

You recently had a second child (congratulations!), but where are you at currently when it comes to building your next company?

We’ll have to see what happens in the next couple of months once I’m able to put more effort into trying to build something, but I would be very excited about potential partnering with the Merantix Capital team. From our time together, I could see firsthand how your relationship with your portfolio founders is supportive and quite collaborative, when it can sometimes be somewhat adversarial with investors, because your goals are often different.

Thanks for the chat Sean! You are certainly welcome on the AI Campus anytime, and we’re excited to see — and maybe be involved in — whatever you build next!

Are you a serial founder looking to build a category-defining venture on the application layer of AI? Get in touch, and come immerse yourself on our AI Campus like Sean did.