Dash Bio (see Pulse 2.0 profile), a bioanalysis company specializing in rapid and scalable drug development, has announced an additional $11 million in funding, bringing its total to $17.5 million. Led by The Aligned Fund, investors include Freestyle Capital, Cybernetix Ventures, Swift Ventures, LifeX Ventures, Drive Capital, and other notable investors.
Dash Bio’s goal is ambitious but essential: to modernize drug development for today’s biotech landscape. Despite innovations like AI, mRNA, and CRISPR, the process from discovery to approval — spanning 7 to 12 years and costing billions — remains slow, costly, and largely manual. Over 70% of development work is outsourced to CROs, whose labor-intensive models hinder speed.
The company is addressing this challenge directly. It has created the first highly automated, GLP-compliant bioanalysis lab designed to remove the inefficiencies of traditional CROs. Dash offers assays such as ELISA, LC-MS, and qPCR at speeds up to 10 times faster than existing options, enabling drug developers to progress from concept to IND and approval more quickly.
Since its initial funding, Dash has attracted major biopharma clients and assembled a talented team with backgrounds from prominent companies such as Moderna, Science Exchange, and Rootpath, among others. With expertise in bioanalysis, software development, and laboratory automation, the team is well-equipped to deliver industrial-grade efficiency in drug development.
How the funding will be used: With this new funding round, Dash will expand its automated platform, diversify its assay offerings, further develop its proprietary sample and assay management software, and bring on new customers from preclinical stages through late-stage clinical trials.
KEY QUOTES:
“We founded Dash because the broken state of development is one of the biggest threats to progress in biotech. Our platform was designed the right way from day one: real automation, real integration, and real science. This funding is a strong signal that the industry is ready to embrace a new standard — one where bioanalysis is a catalyst, not a constraint.”
Dave Johnson, co-founder and CEO of Dash Bio and former Chief Data & AI Officer at Moderna
“Dash Bio isn’t just faster — it’s foundational. Their team has built the kind of tech-forward infrastructure that biotech has needed for years. We believe Dash is creating the modern stack for bioanalysis and beyond.”
Ariel Winton-Jones, Partner at The Aligned Fund
