Schrödinger Secures $110 Million Series F Funding Led by Bill Gates to Accelerate Drug Discovery with Molecular Simulation

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on May 19, 2019, Schrödinger announced the completion of a $110 million Series F financing round. The round was led by Bill Gates and David E. Shaw, with participation from Invus, Pavilion Capital, Michael Antonov, and GV. The funds will be used to further advance the development of Schrödinger’s computational platform, expand its therapeutic pipeline, and strengthen collaborations with global biopharmaceutical companies.

Schrödinger, founded in 1990, is a world-renowned company specializing in drug discovery and materials design. The company is dedicated to providing proprietary technology platforms to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemical, and electronics companies to accelerate research and development in drug discovery and materials design. Schrödinger employs nearly 400 people across the United States, Europe, Japan, and India.

Crunchbase shows that since its inception, Schrödinger has completed five rounds of financing, raising a total of $247 million. Among these, the company closed a $20 million Series B round in June 2015; in January 2019, it closed an $85 million Series E round led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and WuXi AppTec.

Schrödinger boasts a robust therapeutic pipeline, with research areas spanning cancer, autoimmune diseases, metabolic disorders, and more. The company has established collaborations with numerous renowned pharmaceutical firms, such as Sanofi and Takeda. Additionally, Schrödinger has co-founded several new biotechnology companies with its partners, including Nimbus Therapeutics, Morphic Therapeutic, and Faxian Therapeutics.

Schrödinger’s drug discovery platform integrates physics-based molecular simulation technologies with machine learning techniques. Compared to traditional drug development methods, molecular simulation technology can accelerate the drug development process. The platform includes suites for small-molecule drug discovery, biologics, and materials science, among others. Currently, many of Schrödinger’s novel drug candidates in its pipeline have advanced to clinical stages. Two novel oncology drugs co-developed by the company with its partners have received FDA approval.

Invus, established in 1985 and headquartered in New York, USA, is a venture capital firm. The firm manages over $4 billion in assets and maintains offices in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong.

Pavilion Capital, founded in 1974 and headquartered in New York, USA, is a private equity firm focused on equity investments. The firm is dedicated to providing capital and strategic support to rapidly growing companies in the United States and Asia.

Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Seattle, Washington, USA. He is a renowned American entrepreneur, software engineer, philanthropist, and the chairman of Microsoft Corporation.

David E. Shaw graduated from Stanford University in 1980 and served on the faculty of the Department of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of D. E. Shaw & Co., a global investment and technology development firm.

Michael Antonov is an expert in complex multithreaded architectures, computer graphics, programming language design, and engineering management. He is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Scaleform, the number-one ranked company for user interface (UI) technology development in the video game market, which was acquired by Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK) in March 2011.

GV (Google Ventures) was established in March 2008 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Launched in 2009 as Google Ventures, GV serves as the venture capital arm of Alphabet. To date, GV has invested in more than 300 companies, with a primary focus on life sciences, healthcare, artificial intelligence, robotics, transportation, cybersecurity, and agriculture.

(Compiled by Jiao Yanli)