Immunity-centric biotech firm lands $60m in Series A funding
New York City- and Tel Aviv-based biotechnology firm Immunai has secured another $60m in Series A funding, bringing the company’s total funding landed to date to more than $80m. Immunai’s technology integrates multi-omic single-cell analytics and machine learning (ML) to identify novel immunological insights, in the hopes of discovering and developing effective and targeted immunotherapies.
According to Immunai, the firm will use the funding to expand its AMICA (annotated multi-omic immune cell atlas) database. The company also plans to extend its functional genomics capabilities to reprogram immune cells and validate targets to better support discovery, prioritization, and development of new therapies and drug combinations.
Noam Solomon, Immunai CEO and cofounder, said, “The immune system is implicated in nearly every illness, making our technology critical for identifying, diagnosing, and treating disease, from cancer and infectious disease to autoimmune disorders. Since Immunai’s founding in 2018, we have been mapping the immune system through observational genomics, using multi-omic single-cell technologies and machine learning to better understand how the immune system operates. Our expansion into functional genomics will help our partners tackle their most pressing questions in therapy development and will ultimately improve the lives of many patients.”
Through partnerships with other pharmaceutical firms, biotech companies, and academic leaders, the company hopes to address pressing questions in immuno-oncology, cell therapy, infectious disease, and autoimmunity, including key biology driving clinical endpoints and target discovery.
Kenan Turnacioglu, general partner with investor Catalio Capital Management and recent addition to Immunai’s board, said increasing understanding of the human immune system can be accomplished by combining novel approaches and advanced data technologies.
“This intersection is reflected in Immunai’s founding team and leadership, and I’m excited to be working with the company on this next phase of growth, as they bring together the brightest minds in the fields of single-cell genomics, immunology, machine learning, and data engineering to take on this task,” he said.
“We’ve developed a novel platform to reprogram immunity by mining AMICA, our proprietary harmonized single-cell immunology database, with cutting-edge transfer and multi-task learning algorithms,” said Luis Voloch, co-founder and CTO. “Our vertically integrated functional genomics and AI capabilities allow us to prioritize and validate targets more accurately.”
