Immunai raised a fast $60M Series A to race ahead on mapping the immune system

Immunai uses single-cell sequencing and machine learning to map millions of immune cells and their functions, building a proprietary data set aimed at improving disease detection, diagnosis and treatment.

That raising fast, off the usual funding timeline, would let Immunai lock in the largest immune-cell data set before rival startups won the same partnerships.

$20M seed round in May 2020 led by Viola Group and TLV Partners; the Series A brought total funding to more than $80M.

Immunai launched in May 2020 with a $20M seed round and a stated mission to map the entire immune system, led by Viola Group and TLV Partners.

By February 2021 — less than a year after launch — CEO Noam Solomon said the company 'weren't initially seeking out funding, but the opportunity presented itself' and closed a $60M Series A led by Schusterman Family Investments, Duquesne Family Office, Catalio Capital Management and Dexcel Pharma, with existing investors Viola and TLV also returning. The company had grown to 70 people across Tel Aviv, San Francisco and an in-house sequencing lab in New York, and pointed to an early result with Baylor College of Medicine identifying a gene potentially involved in killing tumor cells as evidence the approach was working.

The Series A came less than a year after the seed round, letting Immunai lock in capital and headcount growth before competing single-cell genomics startups could catch up on data scale.

An early, concrete research result with Baylor College of Medicine gave investors evidence the platform could produce pharma-relevant findings, not just infrastructure.

Returning seed investors Viola Group and TLV Partners participating again signaled continuity in the company's underlying thesis rather than a change in direction.

Growing to 70 employees across Tel Aviv, San Francisco and an in-house New York sequencing lab in under a year showed the company could absorb the new capital operationally, not just raise it.

In a data-moat business, raising faster than the conventional cadence can be the whole strategy — the funding round itself is a race to lock in scale before competitors build comparable data sets.

As of the February 2021 raise, Immunai had closed $60M in Series A funding for total funding over $80M, grown to 70 employees across three locations, and was working to double or triple headcount while developing additional pharma partnerships beyond its initial Baylor College of Medicine collaboration.