Lei Jun and Sequoia Back INFevo, an AI Biotech Firm Spun Out from XtalPi, Pioneering Virtual Cell Technology

On June 1, XtalPi announced its deeply incubated frontier AI biotech enterprise—INFevo Completes Tens of Millions in Angel Funding, byShunwei Capital, Sequoia ChinaandSonghe CapitalJoint participation.

INFevo specializes inBuilding an AI-based "Virtual Cell" System (Virtual Cell System), designed to deeply decode the language of life, thereby precisely guiding innovative drug discovery and engineered cell design.

Currently, biomedical research and development are generally faced with the dilemma of extremely low clinical translation rates. Taking complex fields such as central nervous system diseases, immune disorders, and anti-aging as examples, the success rate of R&D has long hovered between 5% and 8%.

The fundamental reason lies in the persistent lack of a research framework capable of representing and predicting the complex human biological system, while significant species differences between animal models and humans lead to the failure of numerous candidate molecules in late-stage clinical trials.

The key to solving this challenge lies in shifting from a static structural understanding to dynamic systems research. The scientific community widely recognizes that constructing high-fidelity virtual cells is a critical technology for bridging the predictive gap from the laboratory to the human body through system-level quantitative simulation.

To achieve this goal, INFevo adopts a dual-drive strategy of “full-stack AI foundation models + high-throughput automated experimentation.” By establishing digital models capable of predicting cell state evolution under genetic, chemical, and environmental perturbations, and forming a self-reinforcing “dry-wet closed loop,” INFevo accelerates the transformation of virtual cells from a scientific concept into an industrial-grade, high-efficiency R&D tool.

Since its inception, INFevo has upheld a global business vision, directly addressing the core pain points in drug development, and has assembled a cross-disciplinary team that combines robust foundational scientific expertise with industrial delivery experience.

As a strategic project incubated internally by XtalPi, INFevo achieves strong synergy with XtalPi across the drug innovation value chain. XtalPi possesses efficient “molecular-level” and “structural-level” design and screening capabilities in small molecules, large molecules, peptides, and nucleic acids, while INFevo provides AI models and translational predictions at the “cellular level” and “systems biology level.” The integration of these two entities is expected to bridge the long-standing gap between molecular optimization and translational prediction in the drug discovery pipeline for the first time, significantly deepening the competitive moat of both parties.

Leveraging XtalPi’s industry expertise as a leading publicly listed technology company, its robust engineering delivery infrastructure, and global industrial resources, INFevo has rapidly transcended the platform-building phase typical of startups.

Leveraging China’s abundant resources in scientific research and multidimensional clinical data, the company is poised to accelerate the realization of a complete closed loop—from frontier technological innovation to global commercial implementation. By constructing virtual cell models based on AI+Biology large models, and collaborating with global pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners, it aims to jointly explore the “INFevo” of life sciences.

GuanYuINFevo

INFevo is dedicated to building industry-leading AI virtual cell models, providing transformative biological research tools for global drug innovation. By integrating its proprietary state-of-the-art (SOTA) foundational large model, OCOO, with an automated and intelligent cellular experimentation platform, the company has created a world-leading biomedical innovation research platform for the AI era, thereby strongly supporting breakthroughs in basic biological research. Furthermore, INFevo accelerates the translation of innovative achievements into practical applications by effectively bridging clinical research. Focusing on challenging therapeutic areas such as anti-aging, neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune disorders, metabolic diseases, and oncology, INFevo is rapidly establishing a comprehensive AI biology platform that covers novel mechanism and target discovery, virtual drug screening and evaluation, and clinical protocol optimization.

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