CAMBRIDGE, England– Human cell coding company bit.bio today announces the first close of their Series B financing of $103 million.
New and existing institutional and strategic investors in the Series B round, thus far, include Arch Ventures, Charles River Laboratories, Foresite Capital, National Resilience, Inc. (Resilience), Metaplanet, Puhua Capital and Tencent.
The funding will accelerate the clinical development of the company’s proprietary cell coding technology opti-oxTM – a breakthrough gene engineering approach that enables unlimited batches of any human cell to be manufactured consistently at scale through direct reprogramming of stem cells.
It will also support the continued growth of the company’s ioCells product portfolio – where opti-ox is used to create human cell products that are unique because they offer consistency at scale and the cells are highly defined. Access to ioCells enables our partners and customers to conduct translational research and drug development with physiologically relevant human cell models. Using human cells to bridge the translation gap in drug development will improve chances of clinical success and the potential to unlock a new generation of medicines.
bit.bio has already launched two products for research and drug discovery – glutamatergic neurons and skeletal myocytes – with disease models and other cell types to follow.
