Cartography Biosciences

What Cartography Biosciences does

Cartography Biosciences is a clinical-stage precision immuno-oncology company, founded and launched in South San Francisco in July 2022 with $57 million in initial funding. The company builds proprietary single-cell antigen atlases (the ATLAS platform — comprising a Healthy Reference Atlas and Tumor Atlases covering more than 15 million cells across 1,000+ annotated cell types and over a trillion data points per cell) and a target-pair discovery engine (the SUMMIT platform, capable of evaluating up to 25 million surface-antigen combinations). These platforms combine single-cell genomics, proteomics, computational biology, antibody engineering, and machine learning/AI to identify highly specific tumor antigens and rank them across expression, specificity, liabilities, developability, patient coverage, and modality suitability. The lead clinical asset, CBI-1214, is a T-cell engager targeting LY6G6D for microsatellite-stable/microsatellite-instability-low (MSS/MSI-L) colorectal cancer, which received FDA IND clearance and Fast Track designation in December 2025 and dosed its first Phase 1 patient in February 2026. The pipeline behind it includes preclinical CB02 (solid tumors) and the SUMMIT-enabled CB34 x CB48 target-pair program for NSCLC lung adenocarcinoma and triple-negative breast cancer.

Cartography's business model is a platform-plus-pipeline model monetized through pharma licensing and milestone economics rather than product sales. The company generates revenue via upfront payments, R&D funding, milestones, and royalties from strategic collaborations with large pharmaceutical partners — most prominently the up-to-$865 million collaboration with Pfizer announced January 2026 for tumor-selective antigen discovery, and the May 2024 strategic oncology collaboration with Gilead Sciences, which exercised its first option to license a Cartography-discovered target in April 2026. The go-to-market is enterprise business-development-led, run by a senior BD executive (SVP of BD Chester Wong) with a dedicated partnering channel ([email protected]). Capital has come from leading biotech-focused investors — 8VC, Andreessen Horowitz, Catalio, Alexandria Venture Investments, AME Cloud Ventures, Cancer Research Institute, and Wing (2022), followed by a $67 million Series B led by Pfizer Ventures in October 2025 with participation from LOTTE Holdings and a Samsung Ventures strategic investment in May 2026 via the Samsung Life Science Fund.

The company's customers are global large-pharmaceutical firms seeking differentiated, tumor-selective antigen targets and antibody-based therapeutic candidates (T-cell engagers, ADCs, bispecifics) to in-license or co-develop, with downstream clinical-trial oncology patients representing an indirect end-user segment. Cartography serves a high-unmet-need oncology market — MSS/MSI-L CRC alone represents approximately 95% of colorectal cancer cases with five-year survival below 15% in advanced settings — and positions its value proposition around the breadth and specificity of its proprietary antigen atlas relative to public single-cell datasets. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Kevin Parker, Ph.D., with co-founder Ansu Satpathy on the board, CSO Dan Rock, Ph.D. (formerly of Merck and Amgen), and CMO Dirk Nagorsen, M.D.

Name

Cartography Biosciences

Legal name

Cartography Biosciences, Inc.

Website

https://cartography.bio

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cartography Biosciences is a clinical-stage precision immuno-oncology company that uses proprietary single-cell ATLAS and SUMMIT discovery platforms to identify tumor-selective antigens for antibody-based cancer therapies. It serves global pharmaceutical partners via licensing collaborations and is developing a pipeline led by CBI-1214 for colorectal cancer.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Oncology Therapeutics

NAICS

Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)

SIC

Biological Products, (No Disgnostic Substances) (2836)

akta.pro primary industry

Single-Cell & Spatial Omics Discovery Platforms (target ID/validation, functional profiling) (HLAAAIAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Antibody Discovery & Engineering Platforms (display tech, bispecifics, Fc engineering) (HLAAAIAB), AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening) (HLAAAIAE), Bispecific & Multispecific Antibodies (HLAAAAAF), Target Identification & Validation Platforms (omics-driven, chemoproteomics, genetic validation) (HLAAAIAI)

Keywords

• Cancer immunotherapy development
• Single-cell antigen discovery
• Antibody-based therapeutics
• Tumor-selective antigen targeting
• Bispecific T-cell engagers

Headquarters

HQ city

South San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Pharma Licensing & Milestone Payments: Cartography generates revenue through upfront payments, research funding, milestone payments, and royalties from strategic collaborations and licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies, including the $865M Pfizer collaboration (Jan 2026) covering upfront, milestones, and royalties.
2. Option Exercise & Target Licensing Fees: Revenue from pharmaceutical partners exercising options to license novel oncology targets discovered by Cartography, as exemplified by Gilead's first option target exercise in April 2026.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Cartography Biosciences develops antibody-based cancer immunotherapies built on its proprietary ATLAS single-cell antigen atlas (combining a Healthy Reference Atlas and Tumor Atlases) and SUMMIT multi-specificity platform for target-pair identification. The company identifies and ranks tumor-selective antigens using single-cell genomics, proteomics, and AI/ML, and translates those targets into a pipeline of T-cell engagers, ADCs, and bispecific antibody candidates. It monetizes these discovery capabilities and pipeline programs through strategic licensing and collaboration agreements with large pharmaceutical companies.

Product overview

Cartography Biosciences is a clinical-stage oncology therapeutics company built around a platform-plus-pipeline architecture. The proprietary ATLAS platform serves as the core antigen atlas (combining a Healthy Reference Atlas and Tumor Atlases powered by single-cell RNA sequencing) for target identification and ranking, while the SUMMIT platform extends it to engineered multi-specificity by identifying target pairs. These platforms together generate a differentiated pipeline of antibody-based therapies (including T-cell engagers, ADCs, and bispecifics); the lead clinical asset CBI-1214 (a T-cell engager for colorectal cancer) has entered Phase 1, with discovery programs CB02 (solid tumors) and CB34 x CB48 (NSCLC/TNBC) progressing behind it. Cartography combines single-cell genomics, proteomics, machine learning, AI, and computational biology to translate identified targets into therapeutics across multiple modalities.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• ATLAS Platform A curated, fully integrated, proprietary set of single-cell RNA-based data and tissue repositories containing 10X the cells found in publicly available single-cell datasets; combines a Healthy Reference Atlas (1,000+ annotated cell types across every major organ) with Tumor Atlases (over a trillion data points per cell) and proprietary Target Ranking Algorithms to identify specific, therapeutically relevant tumor antigens for large pharmaceutical partners.
• SUMMIT Platform Next-generation engineered specificity platform that identifies pairs of surface antigens co-expressed on cells of interest to create 'synthetic targets', analyzing up to 25 million potential surface-target combinations for exquisite tumor specificity and broad patient coverage in multi-specific antibody therapeutics.
• CBI-1214 Lead clinical-stage T-cell engager (TCE) targeting LY6G6D for the treatment of microsatellite stable or microsatellite instability-low (MSS/MSI-L) colorectal cancer (CRC); the first clinical candidate generated from the ATLAS and SUMMIT discovery platforms, currently in Phase 1 at Virginia Cancer Specialists/NEXT Oncology.
• CB02 Discovery-stage antibody-based oncology program targeting solid tumors, identified through Cartography's ATLAS platform target discovery engine.
• CB34 x CB48

Quantifiable outcome

• 10X more cells than publicly available single-cell datasets in the ATLAS platform
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability2 records

Feature7 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered flagship.

• PfizerflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 6 January 2026$865 million collaboration announced January 2026 for discovery of tumor-selective antigens using Cartography's drug discovery platforms. Deal includes upfront payments, milestones, royalties, and options to progress multiple antigens for R&D and commercialization. Targeted solid tumors include triple-negative breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.
• Gilead SciencesflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 27 May 2024Strategic collaboration announced May 2024 to develop cancer therapies against novel targets and target pairs. In April 2026, Gilead exercised its first option to license a novel oncology target discovered by Cartography, targeting solid tumors such as triple-negative breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer.

Scale indicators15 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Adagene: Clinical-stage oncology company using AI-powered antibody discovery to develop safer, more targeted immuno-oncology therapeutics; directly comparable in modality (antibody-based cancer immunotherapy) and platform-enabled pipeline approach.
• Compugen: Computational biology company that uses predictive algorithms to discover novel immuno-oncology targets and develop antibody therapeutics; closely analogous target-discovery-plus-modality business model.
• Black Diamond Therapeutics: Precision oncology company applying a computational, genomics-driven approach to discover and develop tumor-selective medicines; comparable in its platform-led target identification for cancer therapies.
• Generate Biomedicines: AI/ML-driven biologics platform that designs novel antibody and protein therapeutics computationally; comparable in combining generative AI with biologic drug design for difficult disease targets.
• Immuneering: Clinical-stage oncology company leveraging AI/ML-driven drug discovery (including its single-cell related bioinformatics) to develop precision medicines for cancer; similar computational biology + oncology focus.
• Werewolf Therapeutics: Clinical-stage oncology company developing engineered immunotherapies designed to be selective for the tumor microenvironment; comparable in building differentiated, tumor-selective cancer immunotherapies with engineered antibody-based modalities.

Broad incumbents

• Personalis: Genomics company specializing in tumor profiling using next-generation and single-cell sequencing for oncology applications; comparable in single-cell genomics infrastructure and cancer focus, but oriented to diagnostics rather than therapeutic discovery.
• Adaptive Biotechnologies: Immune profiling company using high-throughput sequencing to characterize immune cell repertoires; overlapping in single-cell immune genomics and target identification, but with a diagnostic/immunomonitoring focus.
• Schrödinger: Computational drug discovery platform company combining physics-based modeling, AI/ML, and large datasets to accelerate small-molecule and biologic design; comparable as a broader platform-play in computational drug discovery, though spanning more modalities and therapeutic areas.

Others

• 10x Genomics: Provider of single-cell genomics and spatial biology instruments and consumables that underpin many large-scale antigen discovery efforts, including Cartography's ATLAS platform; relevant as enabling technology rather than a direct competitor.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CartographyBio
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cartographybio

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles23 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors16 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cartography Biosciences