NC-XILIS
8.7.2021 14:02:05 CEST | Business Wire | Press release
Xilis, Inc., a pioneering company using its MicroOrganoSphere (MOS) technology to guide precision therapy for cancer patients and accelerate drug discovery and development, today announced the close of a $70 million Series A financing. The round was led by Mubadala Capital, joined by new investors including GV (formerly Google Ventures), LSP (one of Europe’s largest healthcare investment firms), Catalio Capital Management, and Duke Angel Network. Current investors Felicis Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, Pear VC, KdT Ventures, and Alix Ventures also participated.
Founded in 2019 by Dr. Xiling Shen, Dr. David Hsu, and Dr. Hans Clevers, Xilis is based on decades of biomedical, oncology, and stem cell research by its three co-founders. Dr. Clevers, a Breakthrough Prize winner, is the inventor and pioneer of the organoid technology. Dr. Shen and Dr. Hsu are accomplished engineering and medical professors at Duke University and experts in precision medicine. They have developed the scalable MOS technology to analyze patients’ own tumors in their native microenvironment – a breakthrough achievement.
“Our vision is to transform cancer care in diagnostics and reshape drug development by providing a technology for rapid therapeutic profiling,” said Xiling Shen, PhD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xilis. “The support provided by these world-class investors is an important milestone for our journey to transform cancer care and dramatically improve patient survival by enabling personalized precision oncology and bringing transformative medicines to patients faster and with higher success rates,” added Dr. Shen.
Hans Clevers, MD, PhD, Scientific Co-Founder, venture partner at LSP and Principal Investigator at the Hubrecht Institute, Netherlands, stated, “Since my lab invented organoids a dozen years ago, we provided proof-of-concept for many applications, yet the technology remained slow, complex, and expensive. Together with LSP, I have been looking for enabling technology to unlock the full potential, and Dr. Shen and Dr. Hsu’s invention of the MOS technology has torn down those hurdles and will accelerate its use both in the clinic and for drug discovery and development.”
Xilis’ MOS has been proven to have broad applications:
- Leveraging MOS and AI-driven algorithms, Xilis is developing its Precision Oncology Platform to accurately predict therapeutic responses to help clinicians prioritize cancer treatment strategies for each patient. The entire process from patient biopsy to results takes less than two weeks, enabling extensive clinical application.
- The MOS technology enables high-fidelity pharmaceutical drug discovery and development. Drug developers can use this versatile platform at multiple stages of R&D, including early discovery, preclinical toxicity and efficacy, bioanalytical testing, and clinical trials.
- MOS is a revolutionary technology for immunotherapy development, which requires the patient’s immune microenvironment.
Proceeds from the Series A funding will further advance Xilis’ proprietary MOS technology, expand its AI-driven capabilities, fund clinical studies for diagnostic development, and validate the use of MOS technology with biopharma partners.
“There is a critical need for technologies that can help clinicians determine the most optimal therapy for their individual patients,” Mubadala Capital’s Ayman AlAbdallah added. “Patients will benefit greatly from Xilis’ precision medicine assays by avoiding time spent on treatment cycles that are ineffective, and instead, receive therapies with the greatest potential of success quickly and efficiently. The Xilis Precision Oncology Platform is a cost-effective, outcomes-driven advancement that will help reduce the global burden of oncology costs.”
“Genetic approaches to cancer diagnostics continue to be impactful, and Xilis is creating meaningful pathways for its Precision Oncology Platform to improve cancer care for a broader set of patients,” said GV Managing Partner Krishna Yeshwant, MD, MBA. “Xilis brings together experts in the fields of organoid development and precision medicine, and I’m excited to work with this impressive team as they continue to develop a breakthrough approach.”
About Xilis
Based in Durham, North Carolina, Xilis, Inc. is a biotechnology company developing a precision oncology platform that guides treatment decisions for oncologists to improve cancer care outcomes for patients and supports drug discovery and development for pharmaceutical companies. Xilis’ proprietary MicroOrganoSphere™ (MOS) technology consists of miniature patient tumors that capture the full microenvironment and heterogeneity and provides an automated and scalable solution. Using MOS and AI-driven algorithms, Xilis is developing a Xilis Response Score™ for the clinic, enabling oncologists to make informed and timely treatment decisions. Additionally, the MOS technology is speeding up development and clinical trials of cancer drugs by enabling analysis of authentic tumor microenvironments, high-throughput preclinical modeling, and clinical patient selection capabilities.
About Mubadala Capital
Mubadala Capital is the asset management arm of Mubadala Investment Company, a leading global sovereign investor headquartered in Abu Dhabi. In addition to managing its own balance sheet investments, Mubadala Capital manages third-party capital on behalf of institutional investors in four of its businesses, including three private equity funds, two early stage venture funds, a public fund and a fund in Brazil focused on special situations. The various businesses invest across the capital structure in both public and private securities.
To learn more about Xilis, visit our website at www.Xilis.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn .
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210708005283/en/
Link:
About Business Wire
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Robbyant Releases LingBot-Touch to Bring General-Purpose Touch Perception to Robots10.11.2026 10:23:00 CET | Press release
Robbyant, an embodied AI company within Ant Group, today announced the open-source release of LingBot-Touch, a tactile foundation model that gives robots a critical missing sense by enabling robust touch perception. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261109284905/en/ LingBot-Touch encodes magnetic tactile, visual tactile, and piezoresistive signals into unified tactile tokens for use by different action models. Pre-trained on nearly 5,000 hours of real-world tactile data, the model covers three mainstream sensing modalities—magnetic tactile, visual tactile, and piezoresistive sensing—and translates their diverse signals into a unified tactile representation. This allows different dexterous hands and action models to share and reuse tactile understanding, enabling robots to not only “see clearer” and “think deeper,” but also “feel sharper” during fine manipulation tasks, such as turning pages, unscrewing bottle ca
Wise Selects Navan to Modernize Global Travel Program10.11.2026 10:00:00 CET | Press release
Global financial technology company plans to improve traveler choice, cost control and visibility Navan (NASDAQ: NAVN), the global AI-powered business travel and expense platform, today announced that Wise (Nasdaq:WSE, LSE:WISE), the global financial technology company building the best way to move and manage the world's money, has selected Navan to manage its business travel program. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261109603155/en/ Global financial technology company plans to improve traveler choice, cost control and visibility “Our teams travel across the world to work together and support our customers, so it's important that booking and managing travel is straightforward,” said Hanro Hennig, VP Global Real Estate, Workplace and Risk at Wise. “We're working with Navan to make that experience simpler, while giving us better visibility and control over travel costs.” Key anticipated benefits of the partnershi
Quectel Launches EG216Q-GL and BG950Q-GL to Give IoT Device Makers a More Cost-efficient, Lower-power Upgrade Path10.11.2026 10:00:00 CET | Press release
Quectel Wireless Solutions, a global end-to-end IoT solutions provider, today announced the EG216Q-GL and BG950Q-GL, two next-generation global cellular IoT modules based on Qualcomm technology. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110650568/en/ Quectel launches EG216Q-GL and BG950Q-GL to give IoT device makers a more cost-efficient, lower-power upgrade path Built in Quectel’s widely adopted EG2 and BG95 form factors, the modules give device makers a direct route from established legacy platforms to a more cost- and power-optimized generation. Customers can reuse the board designs and development work they already have. The EG216Q-GL is an LTE Cat 1bis module for customers whose designs use Quectel’s EG2-footprint modules. These include the EC2x series, EC200A series, EG25-G, EG25-GL, EG21-G and EG21-GL, as well as the UC200A-GL. Because it shares their form factor, manufacturers can upgrade while keeping their
Heitman Partners with Talliosake to Establish Nordic Drive-Up Self-Storage Platform Talli10.11.2026 10:00:00 CET | Press release
Since 1996, Heitman has invested over $15 billion in 1,600 self-storage properties across 14 countries Heitman LLC (“Heitman”), a global real estate investment management firm, today announced the launch of Talli, a new Nordic drive-up self-storage platform established through the acquisition of the majority of Talliosake Oy’s (“Talliosake”) rental operating business. Talliosake will remain a minority investor in Talli. Completed on behalf of Heitman’s European value strategy, the transaction establishes a platform for expansion across Finland and Sweden and builds on Heitman’s Nordic self-storage presence following its acquisition of the Servistore platform in Sweden in 2024. The Talli platform brings together the experienced management team that has driven Talliosake’s growth with Heitman’s global investment and operational capabilities. Since 2010, Talliosake has delivered more than 6,400 drive-up self-storage units across 230 properties in Finland and Sweden, building deep expertis
OBI Group Will Adopt Blue Yonder Solutions to Unify Demand Planning and Replenishment Across 660+ European Stores10.11.2026 09:00:00 CET | Press release
Germany-based Home and Garden retailer replaces multiple systems with a single AI-driven planning platform spanning 10 countries OBI Group, a leading European Home and Garden retailer, has begun adopting Blue Yonder Demand Planning and end-to-end replenishment capabilities across its stores and distribution centers, with plans to ultimately deploy them to more than 660 stores across all of its markets. The deployment replaces multiple systems with a single, scalable platform. It also gives OBI AI-enabled forecasting and automated replenishment from distribution centers to store shelves, improving product availability for millions of customers across Europe. OBI selected Blue Yonder to consolidate fragmented planning systems into one integrated platform. That helps improve forecast accuracy across assortment types and planning timeframes while standardizing forecasting and replenishment processes across its network. Blue Yonder’s machine-learning capabilities and the prospect of future
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom