Centivax Raises $45M to Advance Universal Flu Vaccine into Clinical Trials

San Francisco-based immunity company Centivax has raised $45 million in a Series A funding round, led by Future Ventures. The investment will accelerate its universal flu vaccine candidate into Phase I clinical trials within the next eight months.

The company’s mRNA-based vaccine—delivered via the same lipid nanoparticle platform used in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine—is designed to offer broad-spectrum protection by exposing the immune system to a diverse range of historical flu proteins. Instead of focusing on frequently mutating regions, Centivax’s approach targets highly conserved viral epitopes, potentially providing long-term immunity even as strains evolve.

CEO Dr. Jacob Glanville, known for his appearance in the Netflix docuseries Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, emphasized that current flu vaccines lose efficacy as the virus mutates. Centivax’s platform, refined since 2012, aims to train the immune system to focus on viral components that remain stable over decades. Preclinical studies in animals and human organoids show promising protection, including against dangerous strains like H5N1 avian flu.

This funding round follows a $10M seed round in 2022 and brings Centivax’s total equity and grant funding to over $79 million, including contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the NIH, CEPI, the US Navy, and others.

Investors in this round include NFX, BOLD Capital, Base4 Capital, Kendall Capital Partners, Amplify Bio, and Steve Jurvetson’s Future Ventures—whose past portfolio includes Tesla, SpaceX, and Cambrian Bio. In conjunction with the raise, Emilio Emini, former CEO of the Gates Medical Research Institute and ex-SVP at Pfizer and Merck, will join Centivax’s board.

The recent U.S. government initiative “Generation Gold Standard”, aimed at universal flu and coronavirus vaccines, aligns closely with Centivax’s mission. The vaccine’s upcoming clinical trial will evaluate protection using a haemagglutination-inhibition assay across more than 20 flu strains, from seasonal to historical and pandemic variants.

Beyond influenza, Centivax is developing a growing pipeline of vaccine and therapy candidates targeting RSV, herpesviruses, malaria, HIV, oncology, and even universal antivenoms—making it a leader in computational immune-engineering for high-impact global health threats.

Led by a core team including Dr. Gusti Zeiner (Chief Innovation Officer), David Tsao (COO and co-founder), and Dr. Nicholas Bayless (CTO and co-founder), Centivax is well-positioned to reshape the future of preventative medicine through immune-system reprogramming.