- CellFE, a company that is developing a microfluidics-based device for delivering gene-editing molecules, announced it raised $4.8 million in Series Seed funding
CellFE, a company that is developing a microfluidics-based device for delivering gene-editing molecules, announced it raised $4.8 million in Series Seed funding co-led by Dynamk Capital and Cota Capital. Embark Ventures, Elm Ventures, and McEwan Lane Family Trust also joined the round. Dynamk Capital venture partner Dr. Gustavo Mahler and Cota Capital Founder and Managing Partner Bobby Yazdani is joining the board of directors.
This funding round will be used for fueling the progress already underway towards developing CellFE’s solution to enable the engineering of the next-generation cell therapies. And the additional investors joining this round indicates the continued interest in the rapidly growing cell therapy sector.
Now CellFE is well-positioned to capitalize on the unique needs of the cell and gene therapy market. And CellFE has created an elegant approach to one of the major bottlenecks in the manufacturing of gene modified cell therapies: how to efficiently deliver gene-editing payloads with high throughput while preserving cell function and viability.
CellFE’s technology uses rapid cell compressions that drive cells to uptake molecules from the surrounding fluid. And this approach fundamentally differs from today’s cell engineering — which uses viral vectors to deliver gene-editing molecules into cells as viruses are limited in the size of the molecule they can carry.
This limits their application for next-generation therapies. And in addition, viral manufacturing is complex and costly and poses potential safety risks. CellFE’s patent-protected microfluidic technology can deliver large molecules into the cells efficiently with high throughput and at a fraction of the cost in a compact, scalable, and tunable manner from research to clinical scale.
Key Quotes:
“We are excited to partner with an absolutely fantastic team of investors to support us in our pursuit of setting a new standard for engineering of therapeutic cells. Oversubscribing the intended $3M round to $4.8M accelerates our technology development and early partnership programs.”
-CellFE CEO Alla Zamarayeva
“Cell and gene therapies are one of the fastest growing sectors in biotechnology today. However, the manufacturing technology needed for such therapies requires further refinement. CellFE’s technology provides a new alternative for high throughput, rapid, and more affordable manufacturing by enabling faster cell gene-editing. We look forward to supporting the CellFE team to scale their business and make their technology broadly available.”
-Dynamk Capital venture partner Dr. Gustavo Mahler
