Nuclera, a Cambridge-based biotechnology company accelerating protein expression workflows, announced that it has raised an additional $15.5M in Series B financing to bring the total to $58M.
To date, the company has raised a total of $83.3M from various investors, including M&G, Amadeus Capital Partners, E Ink, RT Partners, Future Planet Capital, British Business Bank Future Fund, and G. K. Goh.
The funding will allow Nuclera to accelerate the commercial launch of its eProtein desktop bioprinter, which solves the time-consuming protein development that scientists face when conducting research.
Solving time-consuming process
Gordon McInroy, Jiahao Huang, and Michael Chen founded Nuclera in 2013 at the University of Cambridge who was frustrated by the inaccessibility of biology.
Typically, developing proteins has been a time-consuming and complex process, taking weeks, months, or even years for the scientist to obtain the required amount of protein samples.
Here’s where Nuclera addressed the issue through the launch of its eProtein bioprinter. It combines cell-free protein synthesis and digital microfluidics to create a novel technology platform, solving this problem within 24 hours.
Nuclera says it will revolutionise the fragmented protein expression screening system into a single optimised, end-to-end workflow for drug discovery and general bio-innovation.
The eProtein bioprinter will allow researchers to accelerate discoveries and treatments by delivering on-demand, desktop access.
“Rapid biomanufacturing for proteins doesn’t exist today,” said Jonathan Milner, founder and former CEO of Abcam, Inc, and CEO of Meltwind Advisory.
“The ability to screen multiple protein expression profiles and print purified proteins in 24 hours will revolutionize laboratory workflows and make a demonstrable impact in terms of time to publish in academia and drug discovery timelines. The days of screening a single protein expression profile at a time are coming to an end with this technology,” he adds.
Accelerating pre-commercial phase
Nuclera is excited to continue its preparation for a successful commercial launch and will use the funds to support this work.
In the near term, Nuclera plans to expand personnel across key functions in order to accelerate through the pre-commercial phase and bring its innovative technology to market.
Currently, the company is in the process of conducting alpha testing with select, key customers to gather market intelligence and shape the beta program.
Co-founder and Nuclera CEO Michael Chen said, “We’re delighted by the continued support from our existing investors and to have the opportunity to bring on several new strategic partners with our recent Series B raise. With their support, we are quickly scaling all functions from R&D through to our Commercial team. I’m thrilled to advance our mission of making proteins accessible and continue on our journey to deliver our game-changing technology to the market.”
