Cellino closes $16M funding led by Engine and Khosla Ventures

04 Feb 2021

SPIE Startup Winner will develop and progress its AI-guided laser platform to automate cell-and tissue therapies.

Cellino, a personalized regenerative medicine company developing an AI-guided laser editing platform for autologous cell-based therapies, today announced the closing of a $16 million Seed financing round. The round was co-led by The Engine and Khosla Ventures, with participation from Humboldt Fund and 8VC.

The new funding will be used to automate and scale Cellino’s transformative AI-based personalized tissue and cell platform. Cellino is developing an automated process to generate autologous induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) at scale.

The proprietary platform converges breakthrough technologies across optics, biology, and machine learning to engineer high functionality cells with unrivaled consistency and yield.

Lasers, cell biology, and machine learning

“This seed financing round enables us to build towards a democratized future for autologous cells and tissues,” said Nabiha Saklayen, Ph.D., CEO & Co-Founder, Cellino.

“I’m thrilled to be leading a team that brings together diverse backgrounds spanning laser physics, stem cell biology, and machine learning, to achieve our shared mission to increase patient access to custom regenerative therapies.”

“Companies that disrupt entire industries and processes don’t normally originate from a single discipline,” said Alex Morgan, M.D., Ph.D., Partner at Khosla Ventures. “By using single-cell laser processing and AI-guided automation to engineer cells at scale, Cellino is well-positioned to lead the next-generation of personalized regenerative medicines.”

“Stem cell-derived therapies promise regenerative and curative therapies for many diseases,” said Ann DeWitt, Ph.D., General Partner at The Engine, the VC firm spun out of MIT. “Cellino’s transformative approach will dramatically improve quality and scale. The company’s leadership team has the experience and vision to make it a reality.”

Cellino’s platform automates stem cell production using image-guided machine learning, single-cell laser processing, and robotics. By standardizing manufacturing in a closed format, Cellino creates an opportunity to seamlessly scale from pre-clinical process development to commercial-scale manufacturing for autologous iPSC-based therapies.

Cellino is an autologous regenerative medicine company developing an AI-guided single-cell laser editing platform for cell-based therapies. The company has developed a scalable platform that automates and standardizes autologous stem cell production, accelerating the development of life-saving medicines for patients. Cellino is based in Cambridge, MA.