The people
What they build
Open roles via the TechTO Job Board
Working at Cyclica
Browse open roles across the community on the TechTO Job Board — Canada’s most connected tech network. Cyclica’s roles show up here whenever they post.
Open roles on the TechTO Job Board ↗Or their own careers page: recursion.com/careers ↗Jobs live on jobs.techto.org — the only structured source. We link to it rather than scraping career sites, so the board is always the source of truth.
On the TechTO stage
Naheed Kurji of Cyclica presents No Frills Behind Building
Watch on YouTube ↗Starting a healthtech startup | Naheed Kurji (Cyclica)
Watch on YouTube ↗Every talk is searchable — ask the archive about Cyclica ↗
About
Cyclica inverted the usual drug-discovery question. Rather than designing one key for one lock, it predicted every protein a small molecule would touch — polypharmacology — to catch side effects and find new uses earlier. Kurji laid the analogy out on the TechTO stage in July 2020, days after closing a $23M Series B led by Drive Capital. The company also moved from selling software to the top 50 pharma companies toward co-founding biotechs and taking ownership in their programs. Recursion announced the acquisition on 8 May 2023 and closed it on 25 May 2023; the team was fully integrated and Toronto became Recursion's largest office outside its Salt Lake City headquarters. The brand is gone — cyclica.com is now an unrelated used-construction-equipment marketplace.
Backers
Drive Capital (Series B lead, board seat), Chiesi Farmaceutici and GreenSky Capital — confirmed by BetaKit's 2020-06-24 Series B coverage. Kurji said on stage that earlier capital came from friends and family, angel networks and early-stage VCs, and that about $14.5M of it was supported by government grants and non-dilutive financing.
Quick answers
What did Cyclica do?
It used AI and computational biophysics to predict how a drug interacts with every protein in the body rather than a single target, so scientists could spot side effects and new uses earlier. Its main engines were MatchMaker and POEM.
Who founded Cyclica?
Jason Mitakidis and Naheed Kurji, in Toronto in 2013. Mitakidis had pitched the proteome-wide screening idea at a University of Toronto competition; Kurji joined as CFO and became President and CEO in 2016.
What happened to Cyclica?
Recursion Pharmaceuticals acquired it for US$40M in stock — announced 8 May 2023, closed 25 May 2023. The team was fully integrated into Recursion and Toronto became Recursion's largest office outside its headquarters. Cyclica no longer operates as its own company.