EMERYVILLE — Prolific Machines, abiotechnology company advancing biologics development and manufacturing through integrated optogenetics-enabled solutions, has closed a $50 million Series B2 financing led by Atoms & Bits, a growth-stage fund, and Nant Capital, the investment organization which is part of a portfolio of private and public companies in health and life sciences founded by Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D. This brings the company’s total funding to over $100 million.
Prolific Machines will use the new capital to scale its optogenetics platform for biomanufacturing, expanding programs with several top-20 pharma companies and multiple biotechs at its San Francisco Bay Area campus and across its CDMO network. The funding will support team growth, further technology development and scale-up across novel biologics, biosimilars and viral vector programs. It will also fund early work toward tissue and organ fabrication.
Prolific Machines and NantWorks also announced a strategic collaboration to apply Prolific’s platform across biologic programs within NantWorks’ portfolio of health and life sciences companies.
“For the last seven years the Prolific Machines team has been creating the field of Optogenetic Biomanufacturing, allowing any process inside of any cell to be controlled with light. Our goal is to provide the lowest cost and highest precision infrastructure to control biology. We have demonstrated that it works, can be scaled, and that people want it. Our biggest issue now is having too much demand and this funding round changes that. We will be rapidly scaling the business over the next 12 months,” said Deniz Kent, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Prolific Machines.
As part of the financing, James Stewart, founder of Level One Fund and Atoms & Bits, and Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., founder of NantWorks, have joined Prolific Machines’ Board of Directors. Existing investors, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, and Fonterra’s venture arm, also participated in the round.
“Prolific Machines is the most exciting advancement I have seen in biopharma manufacturing in decades. Deniz and his team have built the control system that has long been missing from making medicines in living cells. I look forward to NantWorks, its affiliate companies and Prolific working together on multiple fronts,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., founder of NantWorks.
“Prolific’s optogenetic platform brings precise, programmable control to cells, with major potential across biopharma and beyond. Its early traction already shows strong commercial promise,” commented James Stewart, General Partner of Atoms & Bits.
