Entrepreneur in Residence

Entrepreneur in Residence at Portal

DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative

Reporting: CEO, Portal Biotechnologies

Location: Watertown, MA or San Francisco, CA

Engagement Type: Full-Time or Structured Contract

Program: DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative (EEI)

Portal Biotechnologies, headquartered in Watertown, MA, is a cell engineering platform company building the infrastructure layer for programmable cell medicine. Portal's proprietary mechanoporation technology enables efficient, scalable delivery of diverse cargos into virtually any cell type, including RNA, proteins, small molecules, and gene‑editing tools, without compromising cell function. The approach works across scales and settings, from high‑throughput drug screening to clinical manufacturing, and is designed to integrate as a stand‑alone system or within third‑party platforms.

Since launching its first product in 2024, Portal has built a network of 100+ active customers including the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and leading academic hospitals and cancer centers worldwide. The company operates across three business lines: biopharma R&D screening, next‑generation cell therapy manufacturing, and AI training data generation, addressing markets totaling $100B+. Portal is backed by leading venture investors and has received an $8M contract from DARPA, reflecting both commercial traction and recognition of the platform's potential to reshape how cell therapies are manufactured and deployed.

Portal has been awarded an additional contract under the DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative (EEI), a competitive program that embeds experienced entrepreneurial operators inside deep‑tech companies to drive structured go‑to‑market execution.

The DARPA‑funded program has advanced Portal's platform into a new frontier: compact, portable devices capable of engineering cells at the point of care, opening deployment pathways in hospitals, infusion centers, and distributed settings that current cell therapy manufacturing cannot reach. The remaining challenges are commercial and regulatory, not scientific, which is exactly what this role is designed to address.

The Embedded Entrepreneur will help drive broad adoption of Portal's platform, with particular focus on leveraging these advances to establish hospital and biopharma partnerships and accelerate the path to point‑of‑care cell therapy. This is an externally focused leadership role with full ownership of execution over 12 months, reporting directly to the CEO. The EE will work closely with Portal's CEO and COO and have access to Portal's clinical collaborators, scientific advisors, and investor network.

After the initial funding period, there will be open opportunities to build on the progress in the form of a potential therapeutic spin‑out or Portal leadership role.

Build and advance partnerships with U.S. and international academic medical centers, integrated health systems, VA medical centers, and outpatient infusion centers. Identify principal investigators and clinical programs where Portal's platform addresses real needs in oncology, autoimmune disease, sepsis, and enzyme replacement. Move relationships from initial outreach to signed collaboration frameworks, pilot agreements, commercial sales, and defined integration plans that embed Portal's device and consumables into translational and early clinical workflows.

Conduct structured interviews and demand mapping across target institutions to produce a Customer Demand Report documenting key findings, customer segments, and pilot opportunities. Assess the RBC modification and intracellular delivery landscape, define Portal's key differentiators across throughput, cell viability, infrastructure requirements, and point‑of‑care deployability, and identify gaps the platform is positioned to address.

Translate demand findings into a value proposition framework across customer segments, including academic medical centers, integrated health systems, VA medical centers, and outpatient…