Prolific Machines Unveils New Investment, Strategic Collaboration, and Board Appointments

By TPN Editorial TeamOctober 15, 2026

Through the latest round of fund raising, Prolific will seek to scale its optogenetics platform, support team growth, and further technology development and scale-up across various programs.

Biotechnology company advancing biologics development and manufacturing through integrated optogenetics-enabled solutions, Prolific Machines, has announced the closure of a Series B2 financing round that raised USD 50 million in funds. The financing round was led by Atoms & Bits, a growth-stage fund, and Nant Capital, the investment organization founded by Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., with additional participation from existing investors (1).

The raised capital will be used by Prolific Machines to scale its optogenetics platform for biomanufacturing. Optogenetics was developed in academia 15 years ago and involves the use of light-responsive proteins to regulate cellular behavior (2). While the technology has been available for some time, Prolific is the first company to leverage this technology for industry applications through a combination of preclinical services and platform licensing.

“For the past seven years the Prolific Machines team has been creating the field of Optogenetic Biomanufacturing, allowing any process inside of any cell to be controlled with light. Our goal is to provide the lowest cost and highest precision infrastructure to control biology. We have demonstrated that it works, can be scaled, and that people want it,” explained Deniz Kent, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Prolific Machines, in a company press release (1). “Our biggest issue now is having too much demand, and this funding round changes that. We will be rapidly scaling the business over the next 12 months.”

In addition to scaling its optogenetics platform, Prolific will use the raised monies to support team growth, further technology development and scale-up across novel biologics, biosimilars, and viral vector programs, and fund early work toward tissue and organ fabrication (1). The company also revealed that it has entered into a strategic collaboration with NantWorks that will see the investment organization apply the optogenetics platform across biologic programs within its portfolio of health and life sciences companies.

“Prolific Machines is the most exciting advancement I have seen in biopharma manufacturing in decades. Deniz and his team have built the control system that has long been missing from making medicines in living cells,” said Patrick Soon-Shiong, M.D., founder of NantWorks, in the press release (1). “I look forward to NantWorks, its affiliate companies and Prolific working together on multiple fronts.”

Furthermore, through the financing arrangement, James Stewart, founder of Level One Fund and Atoms & Bits, and Soon-Shiong, will both join the Board of Directors for Prolific.

“Prolific’s optogenetic platform brings precise, programmable control to cells, with major potential across biopharma and beyond. Its early traction already shows strong commercial promise,” commented James Stewart, General Partner of Atoms & Bits, in the press release (1).

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