US-based biomanufacturing technology developer Culture Biosciences secured $15m on Wednesday in a series A round that included Verily Life Sciences, the life sciences innovation arm of internet and technology group Alphabet.
Venture capital firm Cultivian Sandbox Ventures led the round, which was also backed by incubator and investment firm The Production Board, healthcare technology fund Section 32, accelerator operator Y Combinator and the MIT Media Lab-affiliated E14 Fund.
Culture has created a cloud-based software platform that enables researchers to digitally operate bioreactors by automating parts of the process, helping them to monitor results more quickly and conveniently.
Section 32 led the company’s $5.5m seed round in February 2019, investing together with Verily and VC firm Refactor Capital. The latest funding will support work on its digital manufacturing tools and the tripling of its bioreactor capacity.
Cultivian Sandbox managing director Dan Phillips, is joining Culture’s board of directors in connection with the latest round, together with David Friedberg, Production Board’s founder and CEO.
Will Patrick, chief executive of Culture Biosciences, said: “The next generation of breakthrough products across industries will be biomanufactured: our customers use biology to produce everything from novel therapeutics to food proteins to renewable chemicals and materials.
“These companies have all historically struggled with slow and inflexible legacy approaches to scaling up their lab discoveries to commercial production. Our goal is to enable them to develop and scale their bioprocesses in less time, helping to bring their transformational bioproducts to market sooner.”
