A robotics startup in San Francisco just landed $75 million to push robots deeper into one of biotech's most stubborn bottlenecks: actually making the drugs. Multiply Labs builds robotic systems meant to automate the manufacturing of gene therapies and CAR-T cell treatments that are still largely produced by hand in labs today.
The Series B round was led by NantWorks, with participation from existing customer and strategic investor AstraZeneca, as well as Lux Capital and Founders Fund, according to Business Insider.
Multiply Labs' systems use robotic arms in clusters to replicate manual lab processes. The company's next test is turning its specialized units into a scalable manufacturing business.
Robotics in Drug Manufacturing
Multiply Labs is working to bring robotics into drug manufacturing.
Parietti has discussed how robots could help produce individualized drugs. The company's challenge is turning its specialized units into a scalable manufacturing business.
Customers Already Running the Machines
AstraZeneca and Legend Biotech both purchase Multiply Labs' robots and operate them at their own facilities, according to the outlet. Multiply Labs makes money not just from the machines themselves but from recurring revenue tied to the cartridges used in its systems, plus service and support contracts.
The founders shared an interest in robots at MIT. Parietti, who earned a PhD at MIT in 2016, developed early prototypes in his Cambridge apartment before the founders went through Y Combinator, according to MIT Alumni News. Alice Melocchi is a co-founder. The robotic clusters use what's known as imitation learning, powered by NVIDIA AI simulation software, to replicate human lab techniques recorded on video — an approach The Robot Report says can cut biomanufacturing costs by up to 74% and pack 100 times more patient doses into the same cleanroom footprint.
Academic Validation and Industry Integration
A Cytotherapy paper reported statistical equivalence between robotic manufacturing and human operators, according to BioSpace. Separately, Multiply Labs expanded its work with Thermo Fisher Scientific involving DynaCellect magnetic separation units, following earlier work involving Heracell incubators.
To scale production, Multiply Labs established an Italian subsidiary in May 2026, appointing Enrico Racca, formerly head of supply chain and manufacturing for Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1, as its founding general manager, according to the company's own announcement.
Scaling Drug-Manufacturing Automation
Multiply Labs isn't alone in pursuing automated cell therapy manufacturing. Cellares runs centralized “Smart Factory” facilities, a different model from Multiply Labs' distributed, instrument-agnostic approach, while UK-based Ori Biotech signed a $120 million deployment pact in September 2026.
Strategic investor AstraZeneca underscored its own commitment to the automation push in a separate move, opening a $1 billion, 570,000-square-foot Kendall Square research center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, built with 10 floors of automated, robotics-integrated cell therapy labs, as Hoodline reported this week.
For Multiply Labs, the $75 million round buys time to prove that its robotic systems can turn into a manufacturing business — one where robots, not lab technicians, carry the weight of producing some of medicine's most expensive treatments.
