Funding profile · RNA manufacturing

Cisterna Biologics

One reported equity round, in 2022, and three federal Phase I grants since. Two thirds of the capital on record is non-dilutive, and the SEC has never received a Form D from this company.

$500KPre-seed reported for Aug 2022, led by Y Combinator
$974,726Federal Phase I awards on record (NSF and NIH)
$0Phase II dollars awarded to date
0Form D filings on record with the SEC

Data as of September 23, 2026. Company-reported and database-reported figures are labeled.

Rounds at a glance

When Round Amount Investors Source
Aug 2022 Pre-seed, Y Combinator Summer 2022 batch $500,000 reported Y Combinator Database
Aug 2024 NSF SBIR Phase I, award 2415711 $274,980 National Science Foundation Public record
Jun 2025 NIH STTR Phase I, R41GM159477 $350,000 NIGMS Public record
Aug 2025 NIH SBIR Phase I, R43TR005424 $349,746 NCATS Public record
Through Sep 2026 Priced equity round None on record None Not found

What the filings show

Cisterna Biologics, Inc. · SEC EDGAR · searched Sep 23, 2026

Form D
None on file
Form D mentions
None. No pooled vehicle or SPV names the company
CIK
No filer account found
What that means
No Regulation D offering has been noticed since incorporation in 2022
What it does not mean
SAFEs and notes sold under Section 4(a)(2) require no Form D

CISTERNA BIOLOGICS, INC. · SBIR.gov firm record 1994107 · accessed Sep 23, 2026

Address
3349 Las Vegas Dr, Oceanside, CA 92054
UEI
VGCCUDX8F5P5
Employees
1
Phase I awards
3 · $974,726 · average about $324,909
Phase II awards
0 · conversion rate listed as N/A
First award
2024
Set-aside status
Socially and economically disadvantaged: Yes. HUBZone: No. Woman owned: No

Reading the filings

  1. Grant money now outweighs equity, two to one.$974,726 of federal Phase I awards against $500,000 of reported pre-seed equity gives $1,474,726 of disclosed capital, of which 66 percent is non-dilutive. For a company at this size that inverts the usual order: the agencies, not the investors, are funding the work.
  2. Three Phase I awards, zero Phase II.SBIR.gov lists the conversion rate as N/A because nothing has converted yet. Phase I money averages about $324,909 per award and buys roughly a year of feasibility work. Phase II is where SBIR programs pay for scale up, and it is worth several times a Phase I. Until one converts, the federal channel is a series of small, non-renewing checks.
  3. Four years without a Form D.Nothing was filed after the 2022 YC round, and nothing has been filed since. A company can sell SAFEs under Section 4(a)(2) and never file, so the absence is not proof that no money moved. It does mean no priced round has been noticed to the SEC, and it means outsiders have no filed investor count, no offering size and no named directors to work from.
  4. Three agencies funding three different technical routes.NSF paid for mRNA made inside yeast. NIGMS is paying for cold adapted polymerases with the University of Texas at Austin. NCATS is paying for the impurity removal chemistry itself. The purity thesis is one, the technical bets are three, and none of them has been retired.
  5. Headcount says the grants are the operating budget.SBIR.gov records one employee, Y Combinator lists two, Crustdata counted three in September 2026. At three people, $974,726 spread across 2024 to 2027 is close to the entire cost base. There is no burn rate here that requires a venture round to sustain.
  6. Revenue is now possible and entirely unmeasured.The catalog is live with fixed prices from $45 to $165, lead times of four to eight days and Net30 invoicing. That is a real commercial motion. No revenue figure, customer count or order volume is public, and no database reports one.

Commercial signals

Signal Detail Source type
Product About thirty catalog RNAs: transfer RNAs, aptamers, flexizymes, four mRNAs. $45 to $165. Quality tiers labeled PRIME, Prime2.1 and SPECC. Custom synthesis by quote. Company-stated
Terms Quote flow requires an institutional email and address. Purchase order field offered. Invoices issued on Net30 after delivery. Company-stated
Customers None named. Not found
Technical milestone NSF Phase I closed Jan 2026. Project Outcomes Report describes yeast produced mRNA driving visible protein expression in human cells. Public record
Academic links University of Texas at Austin on the NIGMS STTR. A 2025 ACS Nano Med paper co-authored with the Afonin laboratory at UNC Charlotte carries a Cisterna Carlsbad affiliation. Public record
Regulatory No FDA drug establishment registration, drug listing or device registration found in openFDA searches on Sep 23, 2026. No registered clinical trial. Not found
Reported capital CB Insights reports $500K total raised and lists Y Combinator and the National Science Foundation as investors. Crustdata reports $500K in one pre-seed round in Aug 2022. Neither figure includes the NIH awards. Database

What to watch

  • A first Form D. It would be due within 15 days of the first sale in any Regulation D round.
  • A Phase II award on any of the three Phase I projects, which would roughly triple the federal total.
  • A named customer, a distribution agreement, or any disclosed revenue.
  • Whether the NCATS mouse immunogenicity data, due by July 2027, is published or kept internal.
  • Headcount. A move past a handful of people would mean money arrived from somewhere not yet on record.

The Cisterna Biologics story on Healthcare DiscoveryHealthcare Discovery

Related companies

  • Sensible Biotechnologies: Similar focus. A platform that grows therapeutic mRNA inside engineered cells instead of making it in a tube
  • Kernal Biologics: Similar focus. A Boston company designing messenger RNA that switches on only inside the cells it is aimed at, now building an in vivo CAR T therapy on that idea
  • Engage Bio: Similar focus. A small San Carlos company built one thing: a way to carry therapeutic DNA into the nucleus of a cell without a virus, and to give the dose again later
  • Helix Nanotechnologies: Similar focus. An mRNA company that started on cancer, turned to COVID-19 in one week of March 2020, and took a single vaccine candidate into a first human study in Australia

Sources

  1. Public recordSEC EDGAR full text and Form D search, no filings foundSEC · searched Sep 23, 2026
  2. Public recordSBIR.gov firm portfolio 1994107, CISTERNA BIOLOGICS, INC.SBA · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  3. Public recordNSF SBIR Phase I award 2415711, abstract and Project Outcomes ReportNSF · Aug 2024 to Jan 2026
  4. Public recordNIH RePORTER 1R41GM159477-01 and 1R43TR005424-01NIH · FY2025
  5. Public recordopenFDA queries for drug, drug label and device registration recordsFDA · run Sep 23, 2026
  6. Public recordNucleic Acid Nanoparticles Redefine Traditional Regulatory TerminologyACS Nano Med, PMID 41640711 · Nov 14, 2025
  7. DatabaseCisterna Biologics company profile, capital raised and headcountCrustdata · accessed Sep 2026
  8. DatabaseCisterna Biologics profile, total raised and investorsCB Insights · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  9. DatabaseCisterna Biologics funding profile, stage and investorsExtruct · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  10. CompanyThe Y Combinator Standard DealY Combinator · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  11. CompanyOff-the-shelf RNA catalog, prices, lead times and ordering FAQcisternabx.com · accessed Sep 23, 2026
  12. CompanyCisterna Completes NSF SBIR Phase I Yeast based mRNA synthesis Projectcisternabx.com company updates · 2026

Compiled from SEC, SBA, NSF, NIH and FDA public records and published reports as of September 23, 2026. Form D notices report offerings under Regulation D; the absence of a filing does not rule out securities sold under other exemptions. Healthcare Venture Capital Fund holds no position in Cisterna Biologics. This page is not an offer to sell or a recommendation to buy any security.