Nuclera Secures $87 Million Series C Extension to Advance AI-Enabled Antibody Engineering Platform
核心洞察
Nuclera (搜索) has extended its Series C funding round to $87 million with a $12 million extension led by Elevage Medical Technologies (搜索) and Jonathan Milner to accelerate antibody engineering capabilities.
The financing will integrate antibody expression and binding validation capabilities into the company's benchtop eProtein Discovery (搜索) system, enabling end-to-end antibody development on a single platform.
The expansion represents a strategic move into AI-enabled protein engineering, addressing industry needs for scalable and standardized datasets to power next-generation biologics discovery.
Cambridge and Boston-based biotechnology company Nuclera (搜索) has secured an additional $12 million in Series C funding, bringing its total Series C round to $87 million. The extension was led by Elevage Medical Technologies (搜索) and Jonathan Milner, alongside existing investors British Business Bank (搜索) and GK Goh (搜索), marking a significant milestone in the company's mission to revolutionize protein and antibody engineering.
Platform Enhancement for Antibody Development
The new financing will accelerate the integration of antibody expression and binding validation capabilities into Nuclera (搜索)'s eProtein Discovery (搜索) benchtop system. This enhancement will enable researchers to perform end-to-end expression, purification, and binding validation of full-format antibodies on a single high-throughput platform, addressing what company leadership describes as one of the most pressing bottlenecks in biologics discovery.
"This financing underscores our growing momentum and demonstrates that we are expanding eProtein Discovery (搜索) into one of the fastest-growing segments of biologics R&D," said Michael Chen, CEO and co-founder of Nuclera (搜索). "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."
Strategic Move into AI-Enabled Discovery
The expansion of eProtein Discovery (搜索) represents a strategic pivot into AI-enabled protein engineering, supporting the industry's growing need for scalable and standardized datasets for next-generation biologics discovery. The platform combines cell-free expression systems, digital microfluidics, and robust screening data to reduce the time, cost, and uncertainty associated with protein expression and purification.
Michael Wasserman, Chief Operating Officer at Elevage Medical Technologies (搜索), highlighted the significance of this development: "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."
Recent Milestones and Global Expansion
Since its previous Series C close in 2024, Nuclera (搜索) has achieved several key milestones that demonstrate the platform's growing adoption and capabilities. The company has added a membrane protein workflow to its system, expanded its global footprint across APAC and the Middle East, and launched a strategic collaboration with Cytiva (搜索) to accelerate the path from DNA to fully purified proteins.
The system has also been installed at Domainex (搜索), marking its first implementation at a contract research organization (CRO), which signals growing industry acceptance of the technology.
Addressing Industry Bottlenecks
Jonathan Milner, Chairman of the Nuclera (搜索) Board of Directors, emphasized the critical problem the company is solving: "Nuclera is solving one of the most pressing bottlenecks in biologics discovery – the slow, fragmented, and resource-intensive process of synthesising full-format antibodies."
The expanded platform aims to streamline what has traditionally been a complex, multi-step process by providing researchers with a comprehensive solution for antibody development, from initial expression through final validation, all within a single benchtop system.