Jake Adler, founder of the medical startup Pilgrim, was willing to bleed to show investors he was serious about his product.

At just age 21, the biotech entrepreneur is so convinced his product has legs that he wounded his own.

In a video sent to investors, Adler sterilized his thighs before reminding viewers that his product is intended to undergo proper and rigorous clinical investigations. But that didn’t stop him from testing it on himself first.

‘I’m allowed to do anything to my own body.’

Adler reportedly numbed his legs with lidocaine before using a medical device, a punch biopsy tool, to create two “scientifically precise wounds.”

Adler then applied his product, called Kingsfoil, to one of the open wounds. The other wound was left undressed as a control subject.

Kingsfoil is a clay-based hemostatic dressing that turns into a gel-like matter when it touches the skin. It is designed to help close wounds and aid in healing.

The product seemingly stalled the bleeding on the wound it was applied to, according to Business Insider, which reviewed the video.

“I was very cautious,” he told the outlet.

“When I looked through the laws, there was nothing that inherently said I couldn’t do a test on myself.”

Adler added, “In the same way you can get a tattoo, I’m allowed to do anything to my own body.”

With a warning not to try this at home, Adler showed he was willing to go to any length to get his product to market. A few huge investments later, the young entrepreneur is pushing toward what he has been primed to do for years.

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Photo by Ezra Acayan/Getty Images

Adler got a head start in 2023, acquiring a Thiel Fellowship just a year after graduating high school. The fellowship, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, funds young people who “want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom.”

“Two years. $200,000. Some ideas can’t wait,” the website reads.

By March 2025, Pilgrim had acquired $3.25 million in investments, capital that has since ballooned to $4.3 million in seed funding at the time of this writing.

Now, Adler openly recognizes how his fellowship was able to eat up some of the initial costs that cause so many startups to stumble out of the gate. Adler says that while it can take most companies many more months to gain approval, Kingsfoil is able to accelerate its timeline thanks to partnerships with the Department of Defense.

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Adler named Kingsfoil after the healing herb in “The Lord of the Rings.”

The tech space is rife with these types of references to the J.R.R. Tolkien corpus; Alex Karp’s Palantir is named after a seeing stone, Palmer Luckey’s tech company Anduril refers to a sword, and Luckey’s cryptobank startup Erebor is a mountain in the same lore.

While Adler admits that most of his ideas can be credited to works of fantasy, the unofficial banner under which these startups are named immediately evokes the expectation of an elevated standard. When a startup in this orbit uses one of these fantasy-themed monikers, it is expected to be both serious and promising.

Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Adler explained in a March interview that his aspirations are focused on helping U.S. armed forces increase their readiness when it comes to defense, not weaponry.

For example, in addition to Kingsfoil, he has looked into the possibilities of controlling “sleep architecture” so that soldiers can feel as if they have slept for five hours when they have only slept for three. Adler does not want soldiers to rely on pharmaceuticals for rest or alertness.

The biotech entrepreneur also said he wants to build soldier readiness when it comes to chemical threats and create a system that can detect airborne pathogens or poisons. According to Business Insider, that system, dubbed ARGUS, would be coupled with Voyager, an inhaled mist to help the body neutralize chemicals (such as nerve agents) before they reach the bloodstream.

Pilgrim is just a five-person team, however, and these products are still prototypes or in the research and development stages.

As for Kingsfoil, its only current known side effect is minor skin irritation.

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