BOSTON, Mass. — Nuclera said it has extended its Series C financing by $12 million, bringing total funding in the round to $87 million as the company advances antibody engineering capabilities within its eProtein Discovery benchtop system.
The financing extension was led by Elevage Medical Technologies and Jonathan Milner, with participation from existing investors British Business Bank and GK Goh. Nuclera said the capital will be used to accelerate development of full-format antibody expression, purification, and binding validation on its eProtein Discovery platform, which is designed to enable multiplex protein screening and characterization in-house.
The company said expanding the system with antibody-specific capabilities marks a strategic move into AI-enabled protein engineering, addressing growing demand for scalable, standardized, and high-quality datasets to support next-generation biologics discovery. The enhanced platform is expected to allow researchers to conduct end-to-end expression, purification, and binding validation of full-format antibodies on an integrated, high-throughput system.
“This financing underscores our growing momentum and demonstrates that we are expanding eProtein Discovery into one of the fastest-growing segments of biologics R&D,” said Dr Michael Chen, CEO and co-founder of Nuclera. “Scientists increasingly require scalable, high-quality datasets to power AI models in biologics discovery. We are positioning Nuclera to become a foundational platform for the future of protein and antibody engineering, ultimately accelerating therapeutic discovery timelines.”
Since completing its previous Series C financing in 2024, Nuclera has expanded the capabilities of the eProtein Discovery system with the addition of a membrane protein workflow, extended its global footprint across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, and initiated a collaboration with Cytiva aimed at accelerating the path from DNA to fully purified and characterized proteins. The system has also been installed at Domainex, marking the first contract research organization implementation and further validating its commercial and scientific utility.
“Since our initial investment, Nuclera has made meaningful progress in expanding the capabilities, adoption, and global reach of the eProtein Discovery platform,” said Dr Michael Wasserman, Chief Operating Officer of Elevage Medical Technologies. “The extension of the system into full-format antibody expression, purification, and binding validation represents a significant step forward, particularly as biologics discovery becomes increasingly driven by AI-enabled workflows that require scalable, high-quality datasets. Elevage is proud to continue supporting Nuclera as it evolves into a foundational platform for protein and antibody engineering, helping researchers accelerate discovery timelines and reduce friction across the drug development process.”
Jonathan Milner, Chairman of Nuclera’s Board of Directors and founder and former CEO of Abcam, said the company is addressing a key bottleneck in biologics development.
“Nuclera is solving one of the most pressing bottlenecks in biologics discovery – the slow, fragmented, and resource-intensive process of synthesising full-format antibodies,” Milner said. “The team’s success in membrane proteins, one of the most challenging protein classes, combined with their microfluidic expertise, places them in a unique position to transform antibody development workflows.”
Nuclera said its eProtein Discovery platform combines cell-free expression systems, digital microfluidics, and robust screening data to guide early decisions on protein candidates, reducing time, cost, and uncertainty in protein expression and purification.
