Startup profile · funding coverage
Mana Bio funding, valuation and investors
AI-native biotech designing lipid nanoparticles for targeted RNA and gene-therapy delivery beyond the liver.
Keep track of Mana Bio
Save this profile to your VCT watchlist for a quick return.
Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Seed
$19.5M · October 2023
Latest known valuation
Not publicly disclosed
Total disclosed equity funding
$20M
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
seed · San Francisco, California
Overview
Mana Bio (Mana.bio) is a biotechnology company using machine learning to design lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for targeted delivery of RNA therapeutics and gene therapies to tissues beyond the liver. Founded to address the limitation that most LNPs accumulate in the liver, Mana raised a $19.5M seed round in October 2023 co-led by Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health with Base4 Capital, NFX, and LionBird Ventures.
Why Mana Bio is interesting
Mana.bio uses ML to optimize LNPs for extrahepatic delivery — a16z Bio + Health co-led $19.5M seed (2023) as getting RNA therapies out of the liver became genetic medicine's bottleneck.
Product & use cases
Mana's platform combines computational LNP design with experimental validation to create delivery vehicles targeting specific organs and cell types — enabling RNA and gene therapies for diseases requiring non-liver delivery.
- Designing LNPs for lung, spleen, or muscle delivery of mRNA therapies
- Partnering with gene therapy companies needing custom delivery formulations
- Optimizing LNP libraries via ML rather than brute-force screening alone
Key facts
- Seed (Oct 2023): $19.5M co-led by a16z Bio + Health and Base4 (PR Newswire)
- ML platform for extrahepatic LNP delivery design
- Addresses key bottleneck in RNA and gene therapy beyond liver targeting
- NFX and LionBird Ventures among seed participants
Funding history (newest first)
Seed
2023-10 $19.5M- Andreessen Horowitz (lead)
- Base4 Capital (lead)
- NFX (participant)
Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/mana-bio-seed-funding
Investors in our directory
Funds linked from Mana Bio's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Competitive landscape
Edge: Extrahepatic LNP delivery is the industry's top unsolved problem post-COVID mRNA vaccines. Mana's ML-first approach targets the design space faster than traditional medicinal chemistry iteration.
LNP delivery unlocks the next wave of genetic medicines. Mana competes on speed of ML-guided formulation discovery — success measured in preclinical biodistribution data, not software metrics.
-
Acuitas Therapeutics incumbent
LNP leader behind Comirnaty; liver-focused expertise vs Mana's extrahepatic targeting.
-
ReCode Therapeutics direct
LNP delivery for genetic medicines; overlapping extrahepatic delivery thesis.
-
Internal pharma LNP teams alternative
Big pharma proprietary delivery programs; Mana offers specialized platform partnership.
Notable stories
- Mana launched as the industry realized COVID mRNA vaccine LNPs worked brilliantly for liver delivery but most genetic diseases need other tissues — creating urgent demand for Mana's thesis.
- a16z Bio + Health co-leading signals crossover investor conviction that computational bio can solve delivery chemistry faster than traditional pharma R&D cycles.
Industries
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Mana Bio's financing or category context.
FAQs about Mana Bio
Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.
Last updated:
Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.