Portal Biotechnologies raises $9M for cell engineering tech that’s attracted Merck & Co., AbbVie

Massachusetts-based Portal Biotechnologies, Inc., a cell engineering and drug discovery platform company, has closed an oversubscribed USD 9 million financing round led by NFX, with participation from existing investors IA Ventures, Pear VC, Undeterred Ventures, IKJ Capital, and TechU Ventures.

The company said proceeds will accelerate commercial scaling of its Portal mechanoporation platform across three areas:
novel drug discovery workflows, AI-driven biological data generation, and next-generation cell therapy manufacturing.

The company has surpassed over 100 customers to date, including public highlights by Microsoft, Merck & Co., and AbbVie.

Portal’s mechanoporation technology enables rapid, programmable delivery of large biomolecules into cells while preserving cell health and function, which is being used by pharma and academic partners to speed development of cell therapies and data-driven drug discovery.

This latest $9M round follows an earlier $7M seed round led by IA Ventures and adds to Portal’s total disclosed funding of around $12 million, as the company scales its platform across multiple sites in the U.S. and Europe.