LabGenius has announced that it has raised over $10 million in its Series A financing round. LabGenius is a drug discovery company that is using artificial intelligence, robotic automation, and synthetic biology to discover novel protein therapeutics.
The company has developed EVA – a robot scientist capable of designing, conducting, and learning from its own experiments. Importantly, the learning aspect means that EVA gets continuously smarter as it unpicks the genetic design rules that underpin life.
The Series A investment round was led by Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures, with participation from Felicis Ventures, Inovia Capital, Air Street Capital and existing investors.
LabGenius will use the capital to scale its team, expand the scope of its discovery platform, and initiate an internal asset development program.
Through this internal asset development program, the company will evolve novel antibody fragments capable of treating conditions that cannot be addressed using conventional antibody formats.
LabGenius Founder and CEO, Dr. James Field, said: “Protein therapeutics have an unparalleled potential to both treat disease and alleviate human suffering. By transforming how these drugs are discovered, we have a shot at improving the lives of countless people.
“Being able to robustly engineer novel therapeutic proteins has immense commercial and societal value. The discovery of protein therapeutics has historically been highly artisanal, relying heavily on humans for both experimental design and execution. This dependence has proved limiting because, as a species, we’re cognitively incapable of fully grasping the complexity of biological systems.”
Nan Li, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures added: “We have high conviction that computational approaches to protein engineering hold tremendous promise. After researching the space and meeting many companies, we believe that LabGenius is the clear breakout leader.
“We are beyond excited to co-lead the Series A and help the company realisee their very ambitious vision to discover new protein therapies using AI.”