CRO startup Vial scores $67M Series B led by General Catalyst

Vial, a CRO specializing in offering clinical trial services to biotech companies, raised $67 million in a new round of funding, bringing its total money raised to $100 million.

The San Francisco-based company’s Series B round was led by General Catalyst and supported others such as Byers Capital and BoxGroup.

Vial co-founder and CEO Simon Burns said the company will use the funding to expand its clinical operations and strategy teams in the US and across the European Union and Asia-Pacific in order to support its clients globally.

“We will also use the proceeds to continue scaling the Vial technology platform that enables faster, cheaper trials,” Burns said in an interview.

Vial is not alone in trying to change the way clinical trials are done. Companies like 4G Clinical, Huma, Clinsource and Reify Health have taken steps to cut down the time and effort it takes to run studies by using cloud-based trial services and new technologies that promise to streamline clinical trials. In some cases, they’ve taken on additional challenges, such as decentralizing trials and increasing diversity.

According to Vial’s website, there are nearly 30 open positions the company is hiring for across clinics, CRO, engineering, finance, marketing, operations, product management and sales.

Hemant Taneja

Hemant Taneja, Vial board member and CEO and managing director at General Catalyst, said his firm joined with Vial to continue its mission to “reimagine” the industry.

“The transformation that we are seeing happen across healthcare has been slow to come to clinical trials,” Taneja said in a statement.

Vial’s plan is to make clinical trials faster and more efficient by integrating trial onboarding, patient enrollment, site communication and data collection into one connected system with therapeutic areas in oncology, dermatology, ophthalmology, gastroenterology, neurology and cardiology, according to its website.

Founded in 2020, Vial has spent the past two years building a team of clinical operations and strategy executives and paired them with engineers, product managers and designers from Silicon Valley, according to a press release.

Social: Vial co-founders Simon Burns (L) and Andrew Brackin

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