Tolemy Bio, a biotech startup developing software for biopharma teams working with cell therapies and therapeutic proteins, has raised a £1.2 million pre-seed round led by Norrsken Evolve, with participation from Big Sur Ventures, JME Ventures, Masia, and a new UK stealth fund. Orbit is designed to help scientists interpret, optimise and reproduce complex cell biology experiments by bringing fragmented experimental data into one AI-native workspace.
Many cell biology workflows remain highly manual and fragmented, with data spread across spreadsheets, lab equipment, notebooks and disconnected files. In areas such as cell therapies and therapeutic proteins, small changes in experimental conditions can affect drug performance, product consistency and patient access. Orbit is designed to sit on top of existing scientific tools and connect experimental data with AI models that help researchers understand how living cells respond to changes in their environment.
Alongside its workspace layer, Orbit includes a virtual cell and research agent system designed to give scientists a “Google Maps-style” view of cell biology. The platform is intended to help R&D teams answer questions about experiment status and determine next steps more quickly. Early organisations signed up for a phased Orbit roll-out include MIT, the University of Cambridge, MFX and Anthony Nolan.
Founded by Alex Ward and Caelan Anderson, Tolemy Bio was created after the pair worked together at Australian cultivated meat startup Vow. Their backgrounds span cell biology, computational modelling, lab automation, software engineering and cell culture process development. Earlier this year, Tolemy Bio partnered with California-based GeminiBio to create aiMOS, a model-driven offering designed to support custom supplement development for GeminiBio customers.
Funding from the pre-seed round will be used to expand Tolemy Bio’s data generation, machine learning and engineering capabilities, further develop Orbit, and support early customer and partner deployments. Although officially based in Cambridge, United Kingdom, the team will largely operate and deploy from Barcelona for the foreseeable future.
During my time working in the lab, it became clear to me that cell biology is still too difficult to interpret, optimize and reproduce. Teams generate huge amounts of experimental data, but too often that data does not become reusable intelligence. We founded Tolemy Bio to change that. Our platform, Orbit, is designed to connect experimental data with our AI models. Our goal is to make complex cell biology more interpretable, optimizable and useful for real therapeutic development.
What excited us about Tolemy Bio is that they are not simply building another AI tool for biopharma, they are building the infrastructure needed to make complex therapies more understandable and controllable. As well, Alex and Caelan bring a rare combination of wet-lab R&D, modelling and software experience, and we believe Orbit has the potential to become a foundational AI platform for the next generation of therapeutic development and manufacturing.
Cell therapy developers are under pressure to improve performance, consistency and cost. Through aiMOSTM, GeminiBio is working with Tolemy Bio to apply AI modelling to media optimization, helping developers better control their cells and understand the specific needs of their processes. By combining the power of Tolemy’s technology with GeminiBio’s media development and manufacturing capabilities, we are well positioned to enable more targeted, data-driven and scalable cell therapy manufacturing.
