36Kr First Report | AI Decision Platform for Pharma Industry, Woshi Tech, Secures Nearly $10M in Pre-A Funding
HOURS
Supplier of Artificial Intelligence Industrial Scene Solutions
MPCi
Venture Capital Institutions in High-Tech Startup Fields
Morningside Ventures
Well-known early-stage venture capital institution
36Kr has learned of a company aiming to develop an AI decision-making platform for pharmaceutical industry scenarios.「HOURS」The company has completed a nearly $10 million Pre-A financing round, co-led by Matrix Partners China and Morningside Ventures, with follow-on investment from existing shareholder Linear Capital. Yuanyi Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.
Regarding 「HOURS」,36Kr has previously published a detailed report., it primarily serves pharmaceutical CRO/CMO and new drug discovery enterprises. It features an intelligent synthesis pathway and process design platform for small-molecule new drugs, providing end-to-end products from the data tier to R&D and production, with capabilities covering laboratory research, process design, and scaled-up manufacturing.
According to Dr. Zeng Zhuo, the company's founder and CEO, the AI computing platform of “HOURS” can help enterprises in molecular designTimepieceDetermine the synthetic accessibility, cost, and process routes of target small molecules to enhance efficiency and accelerate development.
According to 36Kr's previous analysis, most players in the AI drug discovery sector focus primarily on the “molecular design” stage, whereas 「HOURS」 concentrates on addressing the accessibility and commercial potential of newly designed drug molecules, tackling a more complex systems engineering challenge and value proposition—namely, the “molecular synthesis”, “process design”, and “process scale-up” stages that remain largely unexplored by companies in the field.
“This platform replaces traditional database searches and literature queries, and also bridges the knowledge gap between medicinal chemists and process chemists under conventional workflows. Leveraging the AI platform of 「HOURS」, medicinal chemistry and process chemistry, etc.PolycyclicThis stage enables better collaboration, rapid design of chemical reaction routes optimized for process scale-up, and final process route design.”
It is reported that, to date, 「HOURS」 has established a standardized software product portfolio covering the end-to-end workflow from laboratory research to process synthesis; moreover, through collaborations with numerous industry giants, it has accumulated practical experience in real-world production processes.
Dr. Zeng Zhuo stated, “The HOURS team leverages its core competencies in artificial intelligence, information management, systems engineering, and laboratory automation technologies to achieve the objective of utilizing AI for design, synthesis, and testing, thereby enabling the automated synthesis of target molecules and synthetic pathway discovery.”
He revealed that the company's business development is currently accelerating,Already entered the commercial contract execution phase with multiple leading clients.；The next objective is to establish an AI-automated synthesis platform integrated with our proprietary AI computing platform, leveraging hardware integration and precise software control to replace traditional expert-dependent manual workflows with an "AI design, machine synthesis" paradigm, thereby achieving breakthroughs in the field of synthesis automation.
Regarding investment logic, Sun Linghao, Investment Director at MPCi, stated: In the pharmaceutical industry, the automation and intelligent transformation of chemical synthesis is an inevitable trend; leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance the efficiency of laboratory and industrial synthesis in this field presents clear commercial scenarios;Jing Xutian, Managing Director at Morningside Ventures, stated,In addition to upgrading methodologies in the drug discovery process,“HOURS” alsoThis demonstrates that AI and computing can also empower multiple stages, including pharmaceutical chemical synthesis, process design, and scale-up production, holding immense market potential.