On January 25, 2022, Cellino Biotech, an autonomous cell therapy manufacturing company, announced the completion of a Series A financing of $80 million, led by the impact investment arm of Bayer AG—Leaps by Bayer—8VC, and Humboldt Fund. New investors in the round include Felicis Ventures and others, joining existing investors The Engine and Khosla Ventures. The company has raised a total of $96 million in gross proceeds from private financings to date. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati represented Cellino in the transaction.

Proceeds from the Series A financing will expand Cellino’s software, machine learning, and hardware capabilities for end-to-end manufacturing of both autologous and allogeneic stem cell-based therapies. In addition, Cellino is building a long-term collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where senior investigator Dr. Kapil Bharti is leading the first autologous induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived clinical trial in the U.S., to validate Cellino’s manufacturing approach. The company also plans to build early-stage GMP capabilities to support clinical trials. Cellino’s next-generation process combines label-free imaging, high-speed laser editing, and artificial intelligence (AI) to automate cell reprogramming, expansion, and differentiation in a closed cassette format. Cellino’s approach enables the parallel processing of thousands of patient samples in a single facility, which is vital for scalable manufacturing. Inspired by the semiconductor industry, the company plans to build the first autonomous human cell foundry in 2025.

The Wilson Sonsini team that represented Cellino in this transaction includes: Jennifer Fang and William Kim, with special assistance from Farah Gerdes, Joshua Gruenspecht, David Hoffmeister, Vern Norviel, John Slafsky, Lori Westin, Nimit Dhir, Jahna Hartwig, Priyanka Nawathe, Allegra Sachs, Shefali Tandon, Dawson Wong, and Eva Yin.

For more information, please see Cellino and Bayer's press release.