Multiply Labs

Scores by criterion

Each criterion is defined on our methodology page.

Who uses Multiply Labs and what it's for

Multiply Labs sells to pharmaceutical and biotech companies that make advanced therapies, starting with cell and gene therapy and now expanding to antibodies, viral vectors, and mRNA. The platform is owned and operated by the drugmaker itself rather than run as an outsourced service.³

Named partners include Kyverna Therapeutics, which is piloting the robots on its KYV-102 CAR-T process, and AstraZeneca, which joined the Series B as an investor.^4,3

History

Fred Parietti and Alice Melocchi met at MIT in 2014, while Parietti was a mechanical engineering PhD student and Melocchi a visiting pharmaceutical scientist. They started Multiply Labs in 2016 with Joe Wilson and Tiffany Kuo, went through Y Combinator, and began by building robots that 3D printed personalized supplement capsules.⁶

The company later moved from pills to the far harder job of automating cell therapy manufacturing. It raised a $20 million Series A in April 2021, led by Casdin Capital with Lux Capital among the new investors, and a $75 million Series B on October 6, 2026, led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong with NantWorks.^7,3

The robotic cluster

A cluster links a drugmaker's existing GMP instruments inside a closed, automated enclosure, with robot arms moving material between steps. Multiply Labs says the process stays the same, which avoids a new process transfer, and that clusters can be reconfigured as the process changes.¹

Software records every sensor reading and robot action as electronic batch records. Resonance, its training pipeline, teaches the robots new steps from video of an operator doing them.^1,4

Multiply Labs built the cluster on Universal Robots cobots, which it picked for six-axis motion, force control for delicate handling, and cleanroom compatibility.⁵

Funding and backers

The Series B brought new investors AstraZeneca, Lingotto, Teradyne, and Strange Ventures, with Casdin Capital, Lux Capital, Fifty Years, Ora Global, and Founders Fund returning. Total funding since 2016 is over $100 million.³

The company says it will use the money to expand manufacturing capacity, speed up its product roadmap, and grow its engineering, regulatory, and commercial teams as customers move from clinical to commercial production.³

Competitive landscape

Limits

Multiply Labs publishes no price for a cluster or for its software, so buyers cannot compare its cost with manual production or with other automated platforms without a quote.¹

The 74% cost reduction and 100x throughput figures come from the company and its robot supplier, not from an independent study.^3,5

Revenue is not disclosed. We estimate it at $5 million to $15 million a year, based on a company still moving from clinical-stage deployments to commercial production and a team in the dozens. This is an estimate, not a reported figure.^3,2

What customers say

Where it helps

Universal Robots describes the cluster as producing up to 100 times more patient doses per square foot of cleanroom than manual methods, with better repeatability and sterility.⁵

Strange Ventures, which joined the Series B, wrote that Multiply builds its robots around the instruments, consumables, and workflows already inside pharmaceutical plants rather than asking drugmakers to throw out validated processes.⁸

Where it falls short

We found no published commercial-scale results. Buyers should ask for batch success rates from pilot programs and for the validation work needed before a cluster runs a licensed therapy.⁴

Leadership

• 

  Fred Parietti

  Co-founder and chief executive officer

  Parietti earned a PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT, where he built wearable robotic limbs, and co-founded Multiply Labs in 2016.^6,8

  Read full profile

• Alice Melocchi

  Co-founder and chief scientific officer

  Melocchi is a pharmaceutical scientist with a PhD in pharmaceutical technology from the University of Milan.^6,2

• Manny Guerrero

  Chief financial officer

  Guerrero is Multiply Labs' chief financial officer.²

• Enrico Racca

  Chief supply chain and manufacturing officer

  Racca runs supply chain and manufacturing.²

Sources