Parallel Bio raises $21M to expand its human immune organoid platform

12 June 2025

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Parallel Bio announces it has raised $21 million Series A funding to scale up and automate the production of its immune organoid in vitro platform. This funding round led by AIX Ventures was supported by prominent leaders in AI and biotech, including Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.

Beyond infections and autoimmune diseases, it is widely recognized that the human immune systems plays a key role in a great number of conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and cancer. Yet, due in great part to reliance on animal models for insights into human diseases, the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which immunity affects disease onset and progression remain largely elusive. Inter-species differences in structure of innate and adaptive immunity often lead to discrepancies in drug efficacy between preclinical animal models and patients. Heterogeneity in genetic diversity, microbiome, and exposure to antigens add another layer of complexity in predicting responses to treatments across patient populations.

To advance human-relevant drug discovery, Parallel Bio has created highly predictive in vitro avatars that faithfully recapitulate human immune responses. In Parallel’s tests of more than 75 drugs, the results from its Clinical Trial in a Dish matched clinical data in both the fidelity of the immune response and the variations in an individual drug’s effectiveness based on the diverse backgrounds of the patient population.

As source of human material, Parallel used donor-derived lymph node, tonsil, spleen and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues. By amassing a bank of immune cells from individuals of varying demographics, the team was able to better capture inter-patient heterogeneity in immune responses. The use of patient-derived tissues has allowed Parallel to unlock much needed human-relevant insights into disease mechanisms and therapeutic targets. Immune data generated from testing in human organoids at scale has in turn laid the groundwork for the company's AI-aided development of innovative treatments for human diseases.

“With these milestones, we are closer to making human-first drug discovery the new industry standard,” said Robert DiFazio, CEO and co-founder at Parallel Bio. “For too long, the reliance on lab mice to model human biology has come at a high cost: 95% of drugs fail in human trials even after succeeding in animal studies. We’re turning that on its head by using organoids and AI to discover drugs in true-to-life human models from the start.”

To date, 8 pharmaceutical partners, including three Fortune 500 companies, are testing more than 50 drugs and immunotherapies using Parallel's organoid-based immune system platform.

Besides scaling the AI and automating its capabilities, Parallel intends to invest its newly raised capital in expanding its team of scientists and supporting growing pharmaceutical partnerships.