Sheffield spinout Silvia Bio raises £3 million seed round led by Northern Gritstone

Silvia Bio, a University of Sheffield spinout, has raised £3 million in seed funding led by Northern Gritstone to address the challenges of using living cells to produce biologic drugs. Tech Funding News reported the round on October 15, 2026.

Silvia Bio's Seed Round And Sheffield Labs

Other investors include Parkwalk, the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, the London-based early-stage investment firm Wren Capital, and several angel investors. The announcement provides no information on a valuation and does not state the amount of any previous grants.

The funding will allow Silvia Bio to move from university facilities to dedicated laboratory premises at the Innovation Centre in Sheffield. The company intends to triple its workforce, automate manual processes, and increase its commercial capacity. The long-term aim is to expand globally in the US, Europe and Asia, but the main focus at the moment is building a strong foothold in Sheffield, says Ed Curry, chief executive and co-founder.

Silvia Bio was founded in 2025 by a research group: Curry, Melinda Pohle, and two academics from Sheffield, Adam Brown and David James. The university states that Brown and James supplied the technology, based on more than 20 years of biomanufacturing research carried out at Sheffield.

"Our platform enables biopharmaceutical companies to see more clearly why their cells are not performing well and, most importantly, offers practical solutions that can be incorporated directly into the manufacturing process," Curry tells Tech Funding News.

The platform has two components. The first is cell profiling, which provides a detailed account of how a customer's cells behave throughout the manufacturing process and identifies the factors impeding them; the website states that results are available after four weeks. The second involves Silvia Bio developing small-molecule additives for use in bioreactors to correct these issues, which the company intends to license.

In a case study, Silvia Bio examined 53 control nodes across 12 cell pathways in Chinese hamster ovary cells for an unnamed global drug company. A particular additive, added on day four of an eight-day production period, increased the output of a difficult antibody by 22% and the output per cell by 62%.

Duncan Johnson, chief executive of Northern Gritstone, said: "Silvia Bio is tackling a critical bottleneck in the development of next-generation medicines. Its technology combines deep scientific insight with a clear commercial proposition: helping manufacturers improve yields, reduce delays and make complex biologics more predictable to produce."

Silvia Bio's Funding And Platform Records

According to akta.pro company records, Silvia Bio joined the KQ Labs Life Sciences accelerator program in August 2025, gaining access to biotech mentorship, resources, and ecosystem networks. The same records list a November 2025 early-adopter program for its cell profiling service, run to validate the platform with select partners ahead of general availability, and a December 2025 presentation at the NG Studios x KQ Labs Demo Day.

The records also state that cell profiling data is delivered in as little as two weeks, which they describe as 80% faster than omics studies, and that Silvia Bio media additives can increase cell productivity twofold.

Silvia Bio's Next Steps After The Seed Round

Silvia Bio's move to dedicated laboratory premises at the Innovation Centre in Sheffield follows the seed round, alongside plans to triple its workforce, automate manual processes, and increase commercial capacity. The company's long-term aim is to expand globally in the US, Europe and Asia, while its main focus at the moment is building a strong foothold in Sheffield, according to Curry.