Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

XtalPi lands massive $319M SoftBank-led round C to continue its high-tech drug discovery

XtalPi, an American-Chinese biotech firm that focuses on AI-assisted drug discovery, has raised a $319 million round C from a slate of enthusiastic investors led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund. It joins numerous others with 9-figure rounds in what is clearly a valuable and competitive space.

XtalPi works with major pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer that need to identify promising new drug-like molecules and learn as much about them as possible. It’s very much a race, so companies claiming to use AI to speed up the process have attracted major funding. Though there have been no prominent breakthroughs to speak of resulting from the space, it’s hard to imagine any major player can afford to ignore it.

This company, founded in 2014, purports to offer extremely low-level simulation and prediction of target molecules, both simulating the physics at atomic levels and doing the more traditional data science work that eliminates dead ends and points towards more fruitful avenues for investigation.

Although these advances are in the digital space, the companies still need a large staff of skilled scientists who can verify and advance the results — as well as the facilities to support them. It may help speed up the slow-paced pharmaceutical industry, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap or easy to do so.

AI-enhanced (which is really to say using machine learning techniques) biotech firms have attracted huge funding rounds and lucrative (or potentially lucrative) partnerships as pharma’s biggest companies place their bets. (Insitro founder Daphne Koller spoke on this topic just two weeks ago at Disrupt.)

Daphne Koller: ‘Digital biology is an incredible place to be right now’

XtalPi plans to use the money as you might expect: To scale its existing operations with improved algorithms, more data, and additional computing power.

“We believe AI holds the answer to solving pharma’s productivity challenge,” said chairman and co-founder Shuhao Wen in a press release. “More specifically, XtalPi’s AI-powered platform can improve the industry’s research efficiency and success rate in order to lower costs for discovering and developing new drugs. We look forward to applying our platform to help clients bring more first-in-class and breakthrough drugs to the market and address significant unmet medical needs to benefit patients on a global scale.”

Softbank led the round, with PICC Capital and Morningside making up the larger remaining part, as well as follow-ons from existing investors Tencent, Sequoia China, China Life, and SIG.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...
3 comments
Read more

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Billionaire clothing dynasty heiress launches Everybody & Everyone to make fashion sustainable

Veronica Chou’s family has made its fortune at the forefront of the fast fashion business through investments in companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger . But now, the heiress to an estimated $2.1 billion fortune is launching her own company, Everybody & Everyone , to prove that the fashion industry can be both environmentally sustainable and profitable. There’s no argument about the negative impacts of the fashion industry on the environment. The textiles industry primarily uses non-renewable resources — on the order of 98 million tons per year. That includes the oil to make synthetic fibers, fertilizers to grow cotton, and toxic chemicals to dye, treat, and produce the textiles used to make clothes. The greenhouse gas footprint from textiles production was roughly 1.2 billion tons of CO2 equivalent in 2015 — more than all international flights and maritime shipments combined (and a lot of those maritime shipments and international flights were hauling clothes). The lit...
Post a Comment
Read more