bio.bit raises £18.6m in series C backed by M&G Investments and Dr Jonathan Milner
This article covers bio.bit, a Cambridge biotech startup that has raised £18.6m in a series C funding round to expand production and widen commercial access to its human cell models. The funding aims to broaden the startup's cell portfolio and support academic and commercial researchers, pharmaceutical companies and drug-discovery workflows that require reproducible human biology at scale.
Cambridge biotech startup bit.bio has raised £18.6m in a series C funding round to expand production and commercial access to its human cell models as demand for reproducible human biology grows. The cash will be used to broaden the company’s cell portfolio and convert rising orders into sales across academic and commercial customers.
Why it matters
bit.bio reports paid vial volumes up 76 per cent so far in 2026, orders 34 per cent higher and active customers up 40 per cent year to date, with academic customers increasing 63 per cent. Those figures matter because researchers and drug developers increasingly need large quantities of consistent human cells to test candidates identified by new computational and AI-led discovery methods and to reduce reliance on animal models that can be poorly predictive of human biology.
The deal signals continued investor interest in life sciences tools that can be scaled to meet industrial demand for reproducible human biology.
Inside the product
bit.bio’s core technology, the opti-ox™ platform, programs cells to produce defined human cell types in a controlled, consistent way intended to reduce donor variability and supply constraints. Its ioCells portfolio now spans more than 50 human cell types, including models of the heart, liver and central nervous system. The company positions these models for disease research, functional genomics, drug discovery and toxicology workflows.
bit.bio says it already has manufacturing capacity in place and will prioritise bringing additional cell types to market and widening access for pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology businesses and research organisations.
Who are the investors?
The round includes support from existing backers such as M&G Investments and individual investor Dr Jonathan Milner, founder and former CEO of Abcam. The announcement follows an earlier £37.1m financing raised by the company this year and builds on that commercial momentum.
In the announcement, Cornel Chiriac, Investment Director of Crossover, M&G Investments, said:
M&G’s Crossover strategy is focused on backing ambitious businesses as they move into their next phase of commercial growth, and bit.bio is a strong example of that opportunity.
It has proven technology, established manufacturing capability and growing demand from customers. As the way medicines are discovered and tested evolves, we see significant potential for bit.bio to scale globally and establish human cell models as an increasingly important part of life sciences research.
In the announcement, Dr Jonathan Milner, founder and former CEO of Abcam, said:
I’ve spent much of my career building life sciences tools businesses, and I know what it takes to turn a powerful scientific idea into a company that can shape an industry. Abcam showed how a focused product offering can grow into a global business by becoming indispensable to researchers.
I see bit.bio doing that for human cells. Biology is becoming increasingly central to how medicines are discovered and developed, but progress depends on having the right human cells, in the right quantities, with the consistency researchers can trust. That is a fundamental need, and it is only going to grow.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Dr Emma Pepperell, CEO of bit.bio, said:
The industry is reaching an inflection point in drug discovery. AI is changing the speed at which new medicines can be discovered, while the move towards animal testing alternatives is creating growing demand for models that better reflect human biology.
What these fundamental shifts have in common is the need for vast quantities of consistent human cell models. Someone needs to be able to supply those cells at scale and our investors believe bit.bio is the company capable of achieving that aim.
This creates an enormous opportunity for bit.bio to step forward and address that need. We already have the technology and manufacturing capacity in place. Our focus now is on expanding the portfolio of cells we can offer and making them accessible to researchers around the world.
This investment is a vote of confidence in our ability to become a major supplier of the human cells that the next generation of drug development will depend on.
Pepperell framed the funding as a way to shift from capacity-building to commercial delivery and portfolio expansion, rather than to develop new underlying technology.
The bigger picture
bit.bio’s growth sits at the intersection of two broader trends: the rise of AI-enabled discovery workflows that produce many more candidate molecules and the regulatory and ethical push to reduce animal testing. Both increase demand for human-relevant experimental systems that can be produced consistently at scale.
The company has also received local recognition: it featured in a Business Weekly special in August and won the Life Science Innovation category at the Business Weekly Awards in September.
This round is another signal that investors remain willing to back UK life sciences tool companies that combine a clear product-led offering with manufacturing capability. For the UK and European biotech ecosystem, the challenge now is ensuring these tools can be adopted across research and industry to improve translational predictivity and speed up drug development.
They've invested in bio.bit
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