Ten AI-Driven Biotech Companies Secure New Funding in February, Showcasing Diverse Therapeutic Platforms

According to the data monitoring by Zhiyao Bureau, in February 2024, there were a total of10 CompaniesAI pharmaceuticals-related enterprises have completed a new round of financing, with a disclosed total amount of approximately32.RMB 7.1 billion。

Financing Overview

In February, three AI pharmaceutical-related companies in China received new rounds of financing, including an AI + protein design company.Tusen ZhiheAI + Organ-on-a-Chip EnterprisesBlack Jade ScienceAnd a digital transformation service provider in the life sciences field that has received hundreds of millions of yuan in financingMingdu Intelligent Cloud。

Among them, Tushen Zhihe has successively completed its seed round and angel round of financing. The AI model-based protein design platform ProteinEngine it developed can fully cover the entire process of protein design, enabling protein modification and de novo design; Heiyu Technology, co-founded by Professor Li Yiwei from the School of Life Science and Technology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, focuses deeply on the fields of organoids and organoid chips.

From a global perspective, the United States regionTwo Companies Raise Over US$100 Million in Financing, respectively completing a $135 million Series A round of financingLatigo Biotherapeutics, the company develops non-opioid analgesic drugs targeting the fundamental mechanisms of pain transmission; another AI + anti-aging drug research and development companyBioAge Labs, obtaining $170 millionDRoundFinancing.

When evaluating early-stage projects, the background of the founding team often holds significant appeal, becoming one of the key factors in investors' decision-making. Newly established companies in FranceBioptimus, bringing together a team of scientists composed of AI leaders from Google DeepMind and health tech startup Owkin, successfully completed a $35 million seed funding round, which is a relatively high disclosed amount for an early-stage investment.

This month, in multiple fieldsAIPharmaceutical companies have successfully obtained funding support, covering various aspects such as clinical trials, anti-aging drug research and development, pain-relief drug studies, drug toxicity evaluation platforms, new vaccine development, and stem cell therapy, demonstratingAIThe widespread application and enormous potential of technology in the pharmaceutical field.

The following is a summary of financing:

Financing Enterprise Details

Sable Bio

Round: Seed Round

Amount: 1.7 million euros (13.2619 million yuan)

London-based startup Sable Bio has raised €1.7 million in pre-seed funding, led by Episode1 Ventures and supported by Seedcamp.

Sable Bio is a B2B software startup company,Ready to Reshape the Drug Target Safety Assessment Landscape for Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Companies. The company's vision extends to establishing strategic partnerships with biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and health technology companies, while promoting academic collaborations.

Bioptimus

Round: Seed Round

Amount: $35 million (RMB 252 million)

French Startup Bioptimus Secures $35 Million in Seed Funding. The round was led by Sofinnova Partners and Bpifrance Large Venture, with additional support from French global funds, including Frst and multi-stage venture capital firm Cathay Innovation. Top-tier global tech investors Headline, Hummingbird, NJF Capital, Owkin, and Top Harvest Capital, along with renowned tech entrepreneur Xavier Niel, have joined this funding round.

Bioptimus has assembled a team of scientists comprising AI leaders from Google DeepMind and health tech startup Owkin.The company will link biology of different scales with generative artificial intelligence.: From molecules to cells, tissues, and entire organisms, driving scientific breakthroughs and accelerating innovation in biomedicine and other fields.

Bioptimus will benefit from Owkin’s data generation capabilities and federated global access to multimodal patient data from leading academic hospitals worldwide, as well as a world-class, scalable, and secure computing environment from AWS.

CellVoyant

Round: Seed Round

Amount: £7.6 million (£69.2071 million)

CellVoyant Raises £7.6M in Seed Funding

CellVoyant is an artificial intelligence biotechnology solutions provider that creates new stem cell therapies for chronic diseases, andPredicting and Optimizing Stem Cell Differentiation Using AI-Based Live Cell Imaging, to controllably manufacture any cells and tissues in the body on a large scale.

Its platform, powered by the patent-pending FateView and FateCast technologies, combines advanced artificial intelligence with live cell imaging to address pain points in stem cell biology. Its technology can extract spatial and temporal information in real time from hundreds of millions of cells within complex cell mixtures, helping scientists understand their composition and predict how they will evolve.

Tusen Zhihe

Round: Seed Round and Angel Round

Amount: Millions of yuan

Tusen Zhihe has completed millions of angel round financing, jointly invested by Chengmei Capital and Wuxi Photon Chip Valley.

Tusen Zhihe is aArtificial Intelligence Protein Design Service Provider, committed to providing a universal, lightweight, and controllable protein design and generative AI platform, accelerating the R&D of protein engineering in the synthetic field, and reducing the difficulty, cycle, and cost of developing new products in the synthetic biology and pharmaceutical fields.

Black Jade Science

Round: Pre-A Round

Amount: Undisclosed

Heiyu Science recently completed its Pre-A round of financing. Participants in this round include Waterwood Wutong, Founder Hesheng, Guoshun Investment under Hangzhou Capital, industrial investors, as well as Taiyu Investment under Tigermed and Sequoia China, who continued to increase their investment.

Heiyu Science was co-founded by Professor Li Yiwei from the School of Life Sciences and Technology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. It is a research-based biomedical enterprise with organoid science as its core technology, possessing an organoid intelligent equipment and chip R&D center, an organoid precision medical testing laboratory, an international new drug development platform, and a human-derived organoid biobank.

Core products cover organoid intelligent devices, organoid chips and reagent kits, clinical testing and drug development services, organoid databases, and AI application software systems, comprehensively buildingOrganoid Intelligence Devices, Chips, and Biomedical Technology Commercial Application Platform。

Latigo Biotherapeutics

Round: Series A

Amount: $135 million (RMB 971 million)

Latigo Biotherapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to developing first-in-class non-opioid pain medications to address pain at its source, announced the completion of a $135 million Series A financing round. The round was incubated and led by Westlake Village BioPartners, with 5AM Ventures and Foresite Capital serving as co-leads, and Corner Ventures participating as an investor.

Latigo Biotherapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company,Dedicated to developing non-opioid analgesic drugs targeting the fundamental mechanisms of pain transmissionThe company's proprietary in-house technology leverages cutting-edge artificial intelligence, machine learning, structure-based and knowledge-based design techniques to develop novel drugs targeting human genetically validated targets, optimizing efficacy and selectivity.

Baseimmune

Round: Series A

Amount: £9 million (£81.9558 billion)

Baseimmune, a biotechnology company using proprietary deep learning AI to predict future pathogen mutations for the development of novel vaccines, announced the completion of a $11.3 million (£9 million) Series A financing round led by new investors MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and IQ Capital, with participation from existing investors including Hoxton Ventures, Creator Fund, Beast Ventures, and Maki.vc.

Baseimmune was founded in 2019 by a technical team of vaccine and software developers, pioneering the use of computational methods for design.Cross-protective vaccines for various infectious diseases, while two clinical trials were conducted at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford.

The early product pipeline includes two human vaccines for malaria (BSI002) and a pan-coronavirus vaccine (BSI001), as well as a veterinary vaccine for African swine fever (BSI001). Currently, all drug candidates are being tested as mRNA/LNP or viral vectors.

UNLEARN.AI

Round: C Round

Amount: 50 million US dollars (360 million yuan)

Unlearn® AI Announces $50 Million Series C Funding Round Led by Altimeter Capital, with Participation from Returning Investors Radical Ventures, Wittington Ventures, Mubadala Capital, Epic Ventures, and Necessary Venture Capital

UNLEARN.AI, Inc. was founded in 2017, bringing together a world-class team of experts from the fields of pharmaceuticals, medical technology, machine learning, and business, united by a shared vision.Using Artificial Intelligence to Improve Clinical Trials, for the benefit of patients and clinical coordinators. Combining artificial intelligence, digital twins, and new statistical methods to achieve more efficient clinical trials.

Mingdu Intelligent Cloud

Round: C Round

Amount: Hundreds of millions of yuan

Zhejiang Mingdu Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd. Officially Announces Completion of C Round Financing Worth Hundreds of Millions of Yuan. This Round of Financing Was Led by Shenzhen Capital Group, with Additional Investment from China Merchants Health.

Zhejiang Mingdu Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd. is a company dedicatedComprehensive Digital Transformation in the Life Sciences FieldA high-tech enterprise, the company has pioneered the launch of three innovative and specialized pharmaceutical Internet platforms in the industry: Xelerator SmartLab Drug Intelligent R&D Platform, MindownIn Pharma Pharmaceutical Intelligent Manufacturing Platform, and Smart Biopharma Platform. These platforms provide pharmaceutical companies with full lifecycle solutions from R&D to production, helping pharmaceutical enterprises improve R&D efficiency, ensure compliant and stable production, establish a fully traceable smart pharmaceutical enterprise system, enhance the digitalization and intelligent level of pharmaceutical enterprises, and promote the healthy development of the industry.

BioAge Labs

Round: D Round

Amount: $170 million (RMB 1.223 billion)

BioAge Labs, Inc. announced the completion of a $170 million Series D financing round, led by Sofinnova Investments, with participation from Longitude Capital, RA Capital, Cormorant Asset Management, RTW Investments, SV Health Investors, OrbiMed Advisors, Sands Capital, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Osage University Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health.

BioAge is a California-based company founded in 2015 that focuses directly on aging.Using systems biology approaches and AI-based drug discovery platformsTo target key pathways that play a role in aging. The foundation of its platform is a large, longitudinal human dataset, including blood samples, medical records, and patients' final lifespan outcomes.

Currently, it is studying projects related to the decline of immune function and unexplained senile anemia, with the latter being the focus of upcoming clinical trials.

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