The Cambridge-based biotech will use the funding to accelerate the integration of antibody expression and binding validation capabilities into the company’s eProtein Discovery benchtop system.
Cambridge-based biotech research company Nuclera has raised $12 million (£8.9 million) in an extended round of Series C funding, which brings the completed round to $87 million.
The raise was led by Elevage Medical Technologies and Jonathan Milner, and joined by existing investors British Business Bank and GK Goh.
The investment will be used to accelerate the integration of antibody expression and binding validation capabilities into the company’s eProtein Discovery benchtop system, which enables multiplex protein screening, characterisation and expression in-house.
Combining cell-free expression systems, novel digital microfluidics and robust screening data, Nuclera’s system provides clear guidance on which protein has the best chance of success early on. This reduces the time, cost and uncertainty traditionally associated with protein expression and purification.
Since the firm closed its previous Series C funding in 2024, the company has advanced the capabilities of its system with the addition of a membrane protein workflow, extended its global footprint to broaden customer access across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, and initiated a collaboration with biotech firm Cytiva to accelerate the path from DNA to fully purified and characterised proteins to better understand drug-target interactions.
In parallel, Nuclera’s system has been installed at Cambridge-based Domainex, the first contract research organisation implementation of the system, which has streamlined protein production services and further validated the system’s commercial and scientific impact.
“This financing underscores our growing momentum and demonstrates that we are expanding eProtein Discovery into one of the fastest-growing segments of biologics R&D. Scientists increasingly require scalable, high-quality datasets to power AI models in biologics discovery,” said founder and chief executive Michael Chen.
“We are positioning Nuclera to become a foundational platform for the future of protein and antibody engineering, ultimately accelerating therapeutic discovery timelines,” he added.
To date, Nuclera has raised $157.8 million in 11 rounds of funding, according to Crunchbase.
