WSJ Tech News Briefing · Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Pilgrim, a startup developing hardware to detect airborne viruses, has raised $25 million in a seed round, valuing the company at $150 million. The funding round saw personal investments from leaders at Anthropic and a Coinbase co-founder. Pilgrim's device, Argus, aims to identify biothreats by combining air sampling and genomic sequencing.
“We exclusively report that two-entrepreneur leaders have personally invested in Pilgrim, a startup backed by Peter Thiel that builds hardware to detect airborne viruses.”
“The head of Anthropic's frontier red team and a technical staff member joined a $25 million seed round that values Pilgrim at $150 million, alongside a Coinbase co-founder and other tech leaders.”
“Pilgrim's device, called Argus, combines air sampling and genomic sequencing to identify biothreats like Ebola or Anthrax.”