The TechCrunch post,  “Prellis Biologics raises $14.5M, debuts a ‘human immune system’ in a dish’” reports that the series B round for Prellis Biologics (IBSF05 2017) was led by Celesta Capital and existing investor Khosla Ventures. SOSV IndieBio also invested in the round, as it did all Prellis’ prior rounds. The article notes Prellis recently launched a lab-grown human lymph node, called EXIS (external immune system), which mimics the response of the human immune system and will be used in developing new drugs. 

On the benefits of the Prellis lymph node organoid, founder and CEO Melanie Matheu says “By creating this immune system in a dish, we can actually test if those therapeutics are going to elicit an immune response before it goes into a human. Our company’s edge is that [EXIS] is out of the box fully human.”