Steally Bio, a biotech startup founded by Ex-Google ML engineers, raises $12 million on an AI-powered cell imaging platform

For years, scientists trying to understand cells have stuck with frustrating trade-offs. If you want to know what a cell is doing, you usually have to kill it. This is a major obstacle for the development of regenerative medicine and cell therapy. This relies on tracking cell behavior, evolution, and maturation.

The dignified bio works to change it. The Palo Alto-based biotech startup has built a live cell imaging platform powered by machine learning that monitors how cells work in real time without monitoring, tagging or cracking how cells work in real time.

Today, Stelly Bio announced it has raised $12 million in seed funding to expand its platform and expand stem cell-derived treatments. The round was led by AIX Ventures with support from notable angel investors including Dimension Capital, Foothill Ventures, Village Global, Google Deepmind chief scientist Jeff Dean, Carbon Health co-founder Tom Berry, and ITA Software co-founder Jeremy Wertheimer.

Founded in 2022 by Frank Li, a leading ML engineer at Google’s Calico Labs, Steally Bio brings a rare combination of AI and biology under one roof. Li is joined by teams with deep expertise in locations such as MIT’s Broad Institute, Stanford’s Stem Cell Institute, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and National Resilience.

Steally’s approach solves the major problems with cell therapy. It is the lack of non-destructive tools to measure cell quality. Traditionally, to assess whether a stem cell has matured into a hepatocyte or other target cell, researchers need to break it down and measure internal molecules. The method is slow, expensive, and most importantly, one at a time. Once the cell was tested, it was gone. Therefore, it is almost impossible to monitor progress or optimize results on a large scale.

The imposing bio platform allowed researchers to analyze live cells on the spot, together, and without damaging them. The system captures high-resolution images, classifies cell types using machine learning models, tracks development, and even predicts manufacturing results. There are no fluorescent tags or genetic tinkering. Pure observation and reasoning.

For drug manufacturers and biomanufacturers, it means faster development timelines, better quality control, and more reliable production of cell-based therapies. On the discovery side, it opens a new door to building more functional and powerful cell lines.

The company is already showing early victory. In collaboration with the New York Blood Center (NYBC), Steally’s imaging platform has identified subpopulations of immune cells faster and more accurately than traditional tools such as flow cytometry. That verification helped them win the Top Scoring Startup (Enabler) Abstract Award at the upcoming ISCT 2025 conference.

Steally’s internal liver program also shows serious promise. The company has developed stem cell-derived hepatocytes that are three to ten times more than existing technologies in major metabolic assays. They are currently seeking to expand the platform to other cell types and explore partnerships in areas such as toxicity screening, disease modeling, and therapeutic applications.

“We are pleased to announce that we are committed to providing a range of services and services to our customers,” said Krish Ramadurai, partner at AIX Ventures. “This approach addresses a critical bottleneck that has long been limited in regenerative medicine breakthroughs.”

Founder Frank Lee said more directly: “The majestic bio unlocks the power to decode cellular behaviors that previously weren’t visible to science. This type of funding will expand technology, develop cell therapy faster, and make it accessible to everyone at an affordable price.”

With new $12 million validations in the bank and increasing validations across partners and programs, Steally Bio is positioned as one of the leading players in helping push regenerative medicine from labs to clinics.