Vivodyne seeks to sidestep animal models with $40 million raise

Philadelphia, USA-based biotech Vivodyne has raised $40 million in series A funding to advance its fully robotic, AI-powered platform that tests drug candidates on lab-grown human tissues.

The latest round - led by Khosla Ventures with new backing from Lingotto Investment Management, Helena Capital and Fortius Ventures - will also support the launch of a new 23,000-square-foot facility in South San Francisco.

The company aims to provide a faster, more human-relevant approach to preclinical research. Its system replaces traditional animal studies with synthetic human tissue testing, addressing what many in the industry see as a critical failure point: nearly all drugs that show promise in animal models end up failing when tested in humans.

Vivodyne's technology automates the cultivation, dosing and analysis of more than 100,000 human tissue samples per run. These tissues can be engineered to reflect a range of diseases, including cancer, fibrosis and infection, and represent more than 20 organ types - from liver and lung to placenta and bone marrow.

The company also claims its tissue samples are significantly larger than standard organoids, enabling more comprehensive biological insights. The goal is to help biopharma partners refine drug candidates using human data before they enter costly clinical development.

Human-first pre-clinical testing

Vivodyne's pitch to the biopharma world comes at a moment of growing skepticism around the predictive power of animal testing. American medicines regulators have started scaling back requirements for such models, especially for monoclonal antibodies, and the National Institutes of Health has voiced support for human-based alternatives. This shift has fueled fresh investment in next-generation preclinical technologies.

According to the biotech, the platform’s integration of multi-omic datasets - such as imaging, transcriptomics and proteomics - from thousands of human tissue experiments each week could help fill that gap.

For many in the field, Vivodyne's approach marks a turning of the tide. Backers argue that applying AI to massive datasets derived from functional human tissue experiments could bring greater clarity to biological mechanisms long obscured by the limitations of animal models.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, emphasized that the company’s platform can simulate the complexity of human disease “before committing billions of dollars to clinical trials.”

As demand for more predictive, scalable testing continues to rise, Vivodyne says it is already working with several leading pharma companies. Its tools are being used to develop a range of therapies, including small molecules, biologics, mRNA-based drugs and cell therapies.

While challenges remain in replacing deeply entrenched pre-clinical practices, Vivodyne’s bet is that robotic precision and AI-scale data will offer a more accurate roadmap to success in humans. And in a field where the cost of failure is measured in billions, that could be a hard proposition to ignore.