[Lieyun Network (WeChat:ilieyun
[Beijing] September 28 Report
Lieyun.com has learned that XtalPi, an AI-driven drug discovery company powered by digitalization and intelligence, announced the oversubscribed completion of its $318.8 million Series C financing round, setting a new global record for fundraising in the AI drug discovery sector.
It is reported that this round of financing was co-led by Morningside Ventures, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and PICC Capital Equity Investment Co., Ltd. It was followed by investments from multiple global institutions, including CICC Capital Operation Co., Ltd., China Merchants Bank International’s Zhaoyin Telecom Fund, Mirae Asset, Shenzhen Has Investment Information Co., Ltd., Citic Capital (Shenzhen) Asset Management Co., Ltd., Haisong Capital, Shunwei Capita, Optimas Capital, Immersion Ventures, and Parkway Fund. Early shareholders such as Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd., HongShan, China Life Capital Investment Limited, and SIG Asia Investments also continued to increase their investments.
This round of financing will be used to further develop XtalPi’s intelligent drug R&D system, building a new AI-enabled digital infrastructure for drug discovery across three dimensions—computing power, algorithms, and data—to serve global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, and partners, thereby meeting the urgent industry demand for enhanced efficiency and accelerated development.
In terms of algorithms, XtalPi has built a robust repository of over one hundred algorithms based on the dual cores of physics-based theories and artificial intelligence. Its physics-based theoretical framework encompasses algorithms ranging from quantum mechanics to classical mechanics, enabling accurate description of the interactions between drug molecules and human proteins at the most fundamental level through the construction of multi-scale, multi-dimensional models. Meanwhile, its AI theoretical framework has established AI-enhanced and cross-validated models that correlate diverse feature vectors with various critical properties of drugs. Moving forward, XtalPi will further develop a digital twin R&D system that tightly integrates modern laboratories with digital R&D platforms, thereby achieving efficient interactive iteration between experimental exploration and drug simulation algorithms.
In terms of data, XtalPi employs a data lake as its primary approach to data governance, enabling the massive volumes of data generated by computations to serve not only as direct computational results but also as inputs for data analytics, machine learning, and other applications. Additionally, through specialized data strategies, XtalPi has accumulated extensive foundational data across the chemical space of drug molecules via quantum mechanics calculations. Currently, XtalPi’s data assets have approached the petabyte (PB) scale. With the development and deployment of its digital twin R&D system and the continuous increase in computational workload, XtalPi will leverage its rich repository of real-world drug development data to support the ongoing innovation and upgrading of its algorithms, thereby tackling more R&D bottlenecks and addressing key pain points in the pharmaceutical industry.
In terms of computing power, XtalPi has built a computing platform capable of globally scheduling massive resources based on a multi-cloud architecture across multiple public clouds, including AWS, Tencent Cloud, and Google Cloud. Leveraging the superior elastic scalability and parallel computing capabilities of cloud computing, this platform can create a supercluster with nearly one million computing cores within hours. This platform enables XtalPi to concurrently conduct ultra-large-scale drug molecule discovery and screening projects, supporting the scalable application of its AI-driven drug R&D technologies.
“Over the past few years, we have focused on building and refining our independently developed ID4 intelligent drug R&D platform. Through collaborations with major pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms worldwide, we have continuously validated the advantages and significant potential of the ID4 platform in terms of cost, speed, and success rate, achieving multiple milestone breakthroughs,” said Wen Shuhao, Co-founder and Chairman of XtalPi. “We are honored that, as advocates and pioneers in the field of AI-driven drug discovery, we have gained increasing recognition from investment institutions for our technology, team, and social value.”
Meanwhile, Wen Shuhao stated, “This is a technology with warmth. Our vision is ‘medicine for every patient.’ These five simple words express the most fundamental aspiration: we hope that all individuals suffering from illness, regardless of age, nationality, skin color, or socioeconomic status, can receive equitable treatment and have access to affordable, high-quality medications. However, achieving this is no easy task. The widespread resonance sparked by the film *Dying to Survive* reflects this very reality. Among leading pharmaceutical companies, the return on investment for new drug development has dropped to less than 5% since 2015. Rising failure rates and costs in drug R&D have made effective medicines increasingly expensive. Furthermore, a vast number of diseases still lack effective treatments. Therefore, great hope is placed in artificial intelligence to enhance the efficiency and success rate of drug discovery through algorithms, computing power, and data, thereby reducing R&D costs, exploring chemical spaces of broader magnitude, and ultimately benefiting patients worldwide by delivering more targeted therapies.”
Data from the Tianyancha app shows that XtalPi, founded in 2015, is a computation-driven innovative drug R&D company. Its ID4 (Intelligent Digital Drug Discovery and Development) intelligent drug R&D platform combines quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing technologies to accurately predict various critical properties of small-molecule drugs, thereby accelerating the efficiency and success rate of preclinical drug research.
It is reported that the company secured its Series A financing from Tencent and Renren in 2015; obtained Series A+ funding from ZhenFund and FreeS Fund in 2017; closed its Series B round in January 2018 with investment from HongShan, Google, and Tencent; and completed its Series B+ financing in October 2018, backed by China Life Capital Investment Limited, SIG Asia Investments, and Yayi Capital.
