Understanding how cells behave has long come at a cost. Scientists traditionally had to destroy a cell just to examine it. That meant cracking it open, tagging it, or staining it—actions that made follow-up studies impossible. As a result, progress in regenerative medicine has been slower and more expensive than it should be.
Now, a new player is changing the game. Stately Bio, a biotech startup based in Palo Alto, has built an AI-powered cell imaging platform that observes live cells in action. Instead of altering the cells, the platform uses high-resolution imaging and machine learning to track what’s happening inside—without causing any harm.
Founded by former Google engineer Frank Li, the company blends artificial intelligence with biology in a way few others have. Li previously worked at Google’s Calico Labs. He now leads a team of scientists and engineers from top institutions like MIT’s Broad Institute, Stanford, and Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
What sets Stately’s technology apart is its ability to monitor thousands of living cells at once. It identifies what type they are, follows their development over time, and predicts how well they’ll perform in future therapies. Best of all, the process is non-invasive—no fluorescent tags or genetic editing required.
That shift changes everything. In the past, testing whether a stem cell had matured into a liver cell meant destroying it. The data was useful, but the cell was gone. That approach made it nearly impossible to scale or improve outcomes efficiently.
With Stately’s platform, scientists can now monitor live cells continuously, improving both accuracy and efficiency. Drug developers can speed up production. Researchers can get real-time feedback. And cell therapy programs can grow faster without sacrificing quality.
Stately Bio is already seeing strong traction. In a pilot with the New York Blood Center, its platform pinpointed immune cell subtypes more accurately than traditional tools like flow cytometry. That breakthrough earned them a Top Start-Up Abstract Award for the upcoming ISCT 2025 conference.
Their in-house liver program is also producing exciting results. The company’s lab-grown liver cells outperform existing tech by up to 10 times across major metabolic functions. Now, the team is preparing to expand into new areas like disease modeling, toxicity testing, and therapy design.
According to AIX Ventures partner Krish Ramadurai, Stately’s work addresses a core bottleneck in regenerative medicine. By offering live-cell insight without damage, they’re opening new paths for progress.
Frank Li puts it simply. By decoding how living cells behave—without killing them—Stately Bio is unlocking a new future for medicine. One where therapies are faster to develop, easier to produce, and better tailored to the people who need them.
