UK synthetic biology company bit.bio is considering a Series C equity round next year to raise at least USD 30m, CEO Przemek Obloj told this news service.

The company most recently raised USD 30m in December 2024 via a bridge round led by UK-based M&G Investments. The size of the Series C round would likely be at least equal to that bridge round, said Obloj, who took over as CEO early this year.

The management has also evaluated several potential acquisition targets, especially in the last 12 months, but hasn’t proceeded due to concerns about product fit and operational complexity, he said. It is open to pitches for joint ventures or acquisition targets, but the bar is high, and any target would need to align with bit.bio’s strategic goals, he added.

Proceeds from the Series C round would be used to finance the expansion of bit.bio’s commercial presence and computational capabilities, Obloj said. The goal is to raise enough to keep the company funded past the point of breakeven in around 2027, he noted.

Existing investors are likely to participate in the upcoming round, he said. Potential new investors could include health- or life-sciences-focused venture capital (VC), growth and private equity (PE) funds, he said. Another good fit could be the investment arms of large biotech and pharma companies in the space, which would be considered carefully, he said.

The management is still deciding whether to engage financial advisors for the upcoming funding round, he said.

Bit.bio has raised around USD 225m since it was spun out of the University of Cambridge in 2016. Leading investors include Arch Venture, Blueyard Capital, Charles River Laboratories, Foresite Capital, M&G, Milky Way, National Resilience, and Chinese conglomerate Tencent, according to the company website.

According to Obloj, bit.bio’s valuation was not far below USD 500m in its USD 103m Series B round, which was raised in 2021 at the peak of the biotech market. The current valuation of bit.bio is likely lower than that, as is the case with most private biotech companies, he said. However, the biotech investment market has improved this year relative to the exuberance of 2021 and the ensuing “nuclear winter” in 2023 and 2024, he argued.

In March 2024, bit.bio’s previous CEO and founder told this news service that the management was eyeing the possibility of a US initial public offering (IPO) in as little as 18 months. And according to Obloj, the company has also been approached in the past about going public via a special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC).

But going public is not a priority for now and is at least two years away, he said.

Equally, bit.bio could remain independent, as many companies are now doing, he said. Once the company is profitable, there will be a range of options to provide liquidity to early investors, he noted.

Bit.bio’s revenue is measured in millions of euros, and grew by over 50% last year, he said. In previous years, the top line has grown by multiples from a smaller base, and continued growth is likely as the company expands its commercial and academic bases, the CEO said.

Cell reprogramming

Bit.bio harnesses synthetic biology to reprogramme human cells into specialised cells for use in biomedical research and cell therapies, as per the company website.

Its cell reprogramming technology stands out from cell-producing companies that use an established technique called directed differentiation, which has inbuilt limitations in consistency and scalability, Obloj said.

The company has hundreds of customers, including nearly all major pharma companies. It has also recently begun to serve academic labs, which tend to order smaller amounts than pharma companies and face different budgetary constraints, he said.

While bit.bio is still developing its own pipeline of cell therapies, this is no longer the primary focus, according to the CEO. Management plans to develop these candidates with the help of partners such as mid-sized biotechs and companies with complementary technologies, he said and noted that discussions with potential partners are ongoing.

The global market for cell reprogramming techniques is set to grow by 8.6% per year to USD 664.2m by 2030 from USD 406.6m in 2024, according to a report by Grand View Research. Main players include Thermo Fisher Scientific, Allele Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals, and ALSTEM, per the report.

Consolidation is increasing in the broader biotech space as many companies have folded or been acquired for modest sums, Obloj said, adding that the strongest will emerge even stronger. This is a natural part of the market cycle, where crises create opportunities, he said.

Among bit.bio’s competitors, NeuCyte appears to be focused on one cell family, while GCTx appears to have pivoted into a product-centric business and is trying to take some products to the clinic, he said.

Some major trends in the broader biotech space include an increasing interest in biology as a frontier for AI and data science, and growing state involvement in biotech, especially under the biosecurity and defence umbrellas, he said.

Bit.bio has more than 100 employees, Obloj said. Last year, Jonathan Milner became the interim CEO as the role’s previous occupant, founder Mark Kotter, became the vice chairman. Obloj, previously the chief financial officer, took the CEO position in February 2025, he said.