Terra

What Terra does

Terra is a cloud-based, open-source biomedical data analysis platform operated by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in collaboration with Microsoft and Verily Life Sciences, founded in 2017 and headquartered at 415 Main St, Cambridge, MA. The platform provides petabyte-scale data access, workflow execution via the Cromwell engine and WDL pipelines, federated data sharing, and integrated modules including the Terra Data Repository (TDR), Data Custodian Application, seqr (rare disease genomics), the Single Cell Portal, and the All of Us + AnVIL Imputation Service (built on a 515,000+ genome reference panel). It is fully open-source under a BSD-3 clause license, hosted on Google Cloud Platform (FedRAMP Moderate authorized) and Microsoft Azure, with AWS support announced in September 2025. At scale Terra serves 65K users across 50 countries, has orchestrated 2B+ core hours of compute, run 30M workflows, processed 110M single cells, and supported the diagnosis of 4,000+ rare-disease patients and the discovery of 300+ novel disease genes through the seqr platform.

Terra's commercial model is a freemium hybrid: the core platform is free to use and cloud compute/storage costs are paid directly by users to GCP or Azure (with $300 in GCP free trial credits for new users), while a paid Enterprise tier provides HIPAA Business Associate Agreements, GDPR Data Protection Addenda, SLAs, guided onboarding, and consultative technical support for organizations with compliance and security requirements. The go-to-market is a layered combination of product-led self-service onboarding, community-led growth through the Broad Institute partnership, public roadmap and forum engagement, and enterprise field sales for regulated and large pharma/biotech/biobank customers. Customer segments are academic medical centers, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, biobanks and research consortia, and public health communities — with NIH acting as a major funder and data provider via NHGRI-funded programs such as AnVIL (awards OT2OD035404, OT2OD002750, U24HG010262, and OT2OD03821).

The platform's most consequential recent strategic shift is the January 2025 strategic collaboration with Manifold to build a next-generation, AI-enabled Terra platform, under which core infrastructure engineering moved to Manifold while the Broad Data Sciences Platform focuses on scientific tools. This is accompanied by AWS marketplace availability, NextFlow workflow language support, AI agents for dataset chat and cohort building, and tightened compliance against FedRAMP Moderate, FISMA Moderate, and NIST SP 800-171 — all of which now underpin NIH controlled-access data eligibility under the January 25, 2025 NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy update.

Name

Terra

Legal name

The Broad Institute, Inc.

Website

https://terra.bio

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Terra is a cloud-based, open-source biomedical data analysis platform operated by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, serving 65K researchers across 50 countries with federated data sharing, workflow execution, and enterprise compliance for academic, pharma, biobank, and public health customers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Biomedical Research Platform

NAICS

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

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)

akta.pro primary industry

Scientific Data Management & Data Platforms (SDMS/Data Lakehouse for R&D) (HLAGAJAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Public Health & Reference Lab LIMS (HLACAMAF), Laboratory Informatics & Reporting (LIMS/ELR) Public Health Networks (HLAJAIAN)

Keywords

• Biomedical data analysis
• Genomics research platform
• Cloud bioinformatics workflows
• Clinical genomics software
• Secure data collaboration

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Cloud Infrastructure Fees: Users pay for compute, storage, and egress resources directly through their Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure billing accounts. Terra itself is free to use; costs are incurred through the underlying cloud providers.
2. Enterprise License Fees: Organizations with unique data or security needs can purchase enterprise-level licenses that provide HIPAA BAA, GDPR DPA, SLAs, guided onboarding, consultative technical support, and additional service commitments.
3. Free Tier with Cloud Credits: Terra core platform is free and open to all. Google Cloud offers $300 in free credits for new users over 90 days. This drives user acquisition while cloud consumption costs are borne by users or subsidized during trial periods.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Terra is an open-source, cloud-based biomedical research platform that lets researchers securely access and analyze petabytes of genomic and clinical data, run reproducible WDL workflows through the Cromwell engine, and collaborate across organizations via a federated framework that keeps sensitive data under its owner's control. Co-developed by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Microsoft, Verily, and Manifold, it serves academic medical centers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, biobanks, and public health agencies worldwide under a freemium individual tier and a paid enterprise license with HIPAA/GDPR compliance.

Product overview

Terra is a unified cloud platform for biomedical data analysis, secure sharing, and global collaboration. The core Terra Platform provides petabyte-scale data access, workflow execution via Cromwell, and interactive analysis environments. Key integrated products include Terra Data Repository (TDR) for versioned data storage, the Data Custodian Application for secure secondary sharing, seqr for rare disease genomics, and the Single Cell Portal for single-cell data. The All of Us + AnVIL Imputation Service offers genomic imputation with 515,000+ genomes. DUOS provides data access control. Available in Individual Use (free, self-service) and Enterprise (paid, with HIPAA/GDPR compliance) tiers. Open-source under BSD-3 clause license.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Terra Platform Cloud-based platform for biomedical data analysis, secure sharing, and global collaboration. Provides petabyte-scale data access, WDL workflow execution through Cromwell, interactive analysis environments, and federated data sharing for biomedical researchers at academic, government, and pharmaceutical organizations. Open-source under BSD-3 clause license.
• Terra Data Repository (TDR) Cloud-native data and metadata storage service that supports versioned clinico-genomic research datasets at granular scale, with audit capabilities and integration to the Data Custodian Application for dynamic secondary sharing.
• Data Custodian Application Application that lets data custodians dynamically share versioned clinico-genomic datasets for secondary use while keeping data under institutional control, with full audit trails.
• seqr Open-source web-based genomic analysis platform for rare disease research, powered by Terra. Provides variant annotations, filtering, collaboration, and Matchmaker Exchange integration for gene discovery, with 46,500+ WES/WGS samples supported.
• Single Cell Portal Online portal for sharing single-cell genomics data, built on Terra. Provides a searchable database of single-cell studies, interactive visualizations, and collaborative data sharing.
• All of Us + AnVIL Imputation Service Cloud-based genomic imputation service offering array data imputation via command-line tool against a 515,000+ genome reference panel, enabling high-accuracy imputation for GWAS and polygenic risk score analyses. Beta release offering up to 2,500 samples at no cost.
• DUOS (Data Use Oversight System) Data sharing platform with controlled-access management software that supports Data Access Committees, dataset registration with UIDs/PIDs, customizable data use limitations, and semi-automated access requests.

Quantifiable outcome

• 30M workflows run on the platform
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

AI capability7 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered strategic, flagship and core.

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)strategicTechnology or Integration · 19 September 2025New partnership with AWS to enable seamless data access and collaboration within organizations' AWS cloud environments, and to enable taking advantage of the latest AWS services. AWS support coming soon.
• ManifoldflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 13 January 2025Strategic collaboration with Manifold to build next-generation platform 'Terra Powered by Manifold'. Manifold focuses on core platform infrastructure while Broad DSP develops advanced open-source analysis tools. DSP team members operating original Terra have moved to Manifold.
• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)strategicStrategic or Co-development Partner · 30 September 2021New partnership announced in 2021 between Broad Institute and CDC, along with Theiagen Genomics, to boost Terra support for public health labs across the USA for pathogen genomics and biosurveillance.
• Theiagen GenomicsstrategicStrategic or Co-development Partner · 30 September 2021Theiagen Genomics partnered with Broad Institute and CDC to help public health labs adopt Terra for pathogen genomics and biosurveillance.
• Broad Institute of MIT and HarvardcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Broad Institute is the primary developer and operator of Terra. Terra was developed by Verily, Microsoft, and The Broad Institute. Broad's Data Sciences Platform (DSP) builds scientific tools and capabilities available via the platform.
• MicrosoftcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMicrosoft is a co-development collaborator for Terra alongside Verily and Broad Institute. Microsoft Azure provides one of the compatible cloud platforms for Terra, with GPU virtual machine availability and integration with Microsoft Genomics Team.
• Verily Life Sciences LLCcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerVerily is a co-development collaborator for Terra alongside Microsoft and Broad Institute. Verily is located at 269 East Grand Avenue, South San Francisco, CA 94080.
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)coreTechnology or IntegrationGCP is the primary cloud platform for Terra with FedRAMP Moderate authorization. Terra services hosted on GCP are FedRAMP authorized. GCP provides compute, storage, and billing infrastructure.
• Microsoft AzurecoreTechnology or IntegrationAzure is an alternative compatible cloud platform for Terra. Terra services hosted on Microsoft Azure will be FedRAMP authorized in the future. Microsoft Genomics Team supports Terra on Azure.
• NIH (National Institutes of Health)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNIH provides major funding and data programs through NHGRI. AnVIL is funded by NHGRI. Terra powers NIH platforms like AnVIL and supports NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy compliance. NIH awards OT2OD035404, OT2OD03821, OT2OD002750, and U24HG010262 support various Terra services.

Scale indicators13 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• DNAnexus: DNAnexus is a cloud-based biomedical data analysis and collaboration platform serving pharma, biotech, clinical labs, and government customers. It is the closest direct peer to Terra, offering similar federated data, workflow execution, and regulated-environment (HIPAA, FedRAMP) capabilities for genomic and clinical data analysis.
• Velsera (formerly Seven Bridges): Velsera operates a cloud platform for genomic and biomedical data analysis with strong pharma/biotech and clinical lab customers. Like Terra, it provides workflow orchestration, secure multi-party data access, and turnkey bioinformatics pipelines for translational and clinical genomics.
• BC Platforms: BC Platforms provides a genomics and life sciences data platform with federated access, biobank management, and pharma R&D tooling. It overlaps with Terra's positioning around controlled-access genomic data, federated collaboration, and pharma/biotech enterprise buyers.
• Lifebit: Lifebit offers a federated genomics and biomedical data platform (Lifebit CloudOS) with a focus on secure, sovereign data access across institutions and countries. It competes most directly with Terra's federated data access framework and AnVIL-style cross-institution collaboration model.

Broad incumbents

• Illumina BaseSpace Sequence Hub: Illumina's BaseSpace Sequence Hub is a cloud environment for sequencer data management and analysis, tightly integrated with Illumina instruments. It serves a similar biomedical researcher audience as Terra but is anchored to a single instrument vendor's ecosystem rather than offering a vendor-neutral multi-cloud, multi-omics platform.
• AWS HealthOmics: AWS HealthOmics is a managed AWS service for genomics, transcriptomics, and other omics workflows with built-in workflow execution and storage. As Terra expands onto AWS, HealthOmics is both a potential underlying substrate and a direct competitor for omics workflow workloads.
• Google Cloud Life Sciences (and Genomics Pipelines): Google Cloud's Life Sciences API and related pipelines provide workflow orchestration for large-scale genomic and biomedical analysis on GCP. As Terra's primary cloud, Google's own offerings are an adjacent incumbent that competes for the same genomics and life-sciences compute workloads.
• Palantir Foundry (Life Sciences): Palantir Foundry is increasingly used by large pharma, NIH, and biomedical research organizations for integrated data management and analytics, including genomics and clinical data. While broader than Terra, it competes for the same enterprise buyer budgets and large-scale regulated data integration use cases.

Regional players

• Aridhia DRE: Aridhia's Digital Research Environment (DRE) is a cloud-based collaborative research platform used predominantly by European clinical and biomedical research consortia. It overlaps with Terra on federated access, workflow tooling, and clinical/research data governance, but is primarily deployed across UK/EU health data environments.

Emerging players

• Form Bio: Form Bio is a bioinformatics platform offering workflow execution, data management, and analysis tooling for life sciences R&D. It targets a similar biomedical researcher and translational team audience with cloud-native pipelines, partially overlapping Terra's individual-use and pharma/biotech segment.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/TerraBioApp
• GitHubgithub.com/DataBiosphere
• YouTubeyoutube.com/watch?v=3rH86vcAqK8&list=PLh_zJaZ9uQ7P0w6bMLWgL8oDul2EiNlv6
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/terrabioapp

Compliance7 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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 Terra