If you’ve ever watched a biotech startup walk a tightrope between scientific ambition and clinical execution, then Neuron23 just did a full-on backflip, mid-air, blindfolded, and stuck the landing with $96.5 million in fresh Series D fuel. That’s not your average extension cord. That’s a warp-speed cable plugged straight into the next frontier of precision medicine. The round, closed June 24, 2025, was led by an undisclosed heavyweight in healthcare and joined by a murderers’ row of deep-pocket conviction: Westlake Village BioPartners, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Redmile Group, Blue Owl, Kleiner Perkins, HBM Healthcare Investments, and Acorn Bioventures. That kind of syndicate doesn’t show up for maybes, they show up for inevitables.
Founded in 2018 through a cross-continental link-up between Origenis GmbH and Kleiner Perkins, Neuron23 isn’t dabbling in potential, it’s surgically targeting it. Their lead asset, NEU-411, isn’t just a LRRK2 inhibitor for Parkinson’s, it’s a potential reset button on how we treat the disease at the genetic level. Phase 1 showed the drug was safe and tolerable in over 100 healthy volunteers. Phase 2, NEULARK, has already dosed its first patient globally, with topline data expected in 2027. The twist? While only 2% of Parkinson’s patients have the LRRK2 mutation, Neuron23’s deep biomarker work found that up to 30% may be driven by the same target, just wearing different genomic disguises. That’s not incremental, that’s industrial-scale expansion on a molecular level.
CEO Nancy Stagliano, Ph.D., isn’t new to biotech moonshots. She’s done exits at True North, iPierian, and CytomX, she knows how to get the right science to the right patients at the right time. Founder and Chief Business Officer Adam Knight brings the long game mindset forged at Kleiner Perkins. CMO Sam Jackson, M.D., MBA, EVP of Drug Discovery Steve Wood, and a heavyweight team of VPs across research, regulatory, clinical ops, and translational R&D are quietly assembling a juggernaut that doesn’t miss details or deadlines.
Neuron23 is doing more than making drugs. They’re building a pipeline-within-a-product platform, blending artificial intelligence, machine learning, and human genetics like it’s molecular jazz. This isn’t theory, it’s stratified patients, real SNPs, companion diagnostics (shout out to QIAGEN, Sano Genetics, and Quest Diagnostics), and digital endpoints straight from Roche’s clinical toolkit. With 83 employees and a Munich, South San Francisco axis, they’ve grown 34% in the last year, quietly, surgically, and with purpose.
Neuron23 isn’t chasing the noise. They’re engineering signal. And that $310 million raised to date? It’s not hype capital. It’s belief, coded in term sheets, wired into trials, and ultimately headed into the hands of patients who’ve waited too long for smarter medicine.
