Atomwise, which operates an artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug discovery platform, has raised $163 million CAD ($123 million USD) in what it called an oversubscribed Series B financing round.
“We will be able to leverage this to develop our own pipeline of small molecule drug programs.”
The Series B was led by B Capital Group and Sanabil Investments, and included returning investors DCVC, BV, Tencent, Y Combinator, Dolby Family Ventures, and AME Cloud Ventures. Two undisclosed “top ten global insurance companies” also participated as new investors.
According to Atomwise, the raise brings its total funding to date to almost $175 million USD. As part of the deal, B Capital Group’s Raj Ganguly is joining as Atomwise’s latest board member, with Hani Enaya of Sanabil joining as a board observer.
Atomwise, founded in 2012, was originally based out of the University of Toronto’s incubator before taking part in Y Combinator and moving to San Francisco. In 2018, the startup raised $57 million CAD for its Series A, backed by the likes of Monsanto Growth Ventures.
The company plans to use the new financing to help it further scale what it calls “the largest” AI-driven drug discovery portfolio “in history” and expand what Atomwise claims is a more than $5 billion deal pipeline for small molecule drug discovery.
“With support from our new and existing investment partners, we will be able to leverage this to develop our own pipeline of small molecule drug programs, further grow our portfolio of joint-venture investments, and realize our vision to create better medicines that can improve the lives of billions of people,” said Abraham Heifets, CEO and co-founder of Atomwise.
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Atomwise plans to use the Series B funding to continue to grow its portfolio of drug discovery joint ventures with leading researchers. The startup’s goal is to partner with researchers to commercialize “high potential candidates” through the drug development process.
Atomwise also plans to use the funding to scale its team and platform. It also plans to expand its work with corporate partners, which includes Eli Lilly and Company, Bayer, Hansoh Pharmaceuticals, and Bridge Biotherapeutics, as well as emerging biotechnology companies like StemoniX and SEngine Precision Medicine.
“New technologies are enabling better and faster R&D for the life science industry,” said Ganguly, co-founder and managing partner at B Capital Group. “The advancements Atomwise has made with its computational drug discovery platform have effectively cut months or even years off of the R&D lifecycle. More importantly, however, they are solving biology problems previously believed to be unsolvable by researchers and delivering that capability to everyone from academics to big pharma.”
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