US-based drug discovery technology provider Atomwise completed a $123m series B round yesterday that included internet group Tencent and two undisclosed insurance firms.
Venture capital firm B Capital Group and the Saudi state-owned Sanabil Investments co-led the round, which also featured DCVC (also known as Data Collective), Y Combinator, Dolby Family Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures and BV.
Atomwise has created a system called AtomNet that utilises artificial intelligence to help researchers design and develop therapeutic treatments for disease targets previously thought to be undruggable.
Abraham Heifets, Atomwise’s co-founder and chief executive, said: “Over the past three years, our platform AtomNet has tackled – and succeeded – in finding small molecule hits for more undruggable targets than any other AI drug discovery platform.
“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 programmes, further grow our portfolio of joint-venture investments and realise our vision to create better medicines that can improve the lives of billions of people.”
The funding will be allocated to further development of Atomwise’s AI technology along with increasing its staff numbers. It boosted the company’s overall funding to $174m.
DCVC and B Capital co-led a $45m series A round for Atomwise in early 2018 with Monsanto Growth Ventures, the strategic investment vehicle that appears to have wound down following the acquisition of its parent company, agribusiness Monsanto, by Bayer.
The series A included Tencent and Baidu Ventures, a subsidiary of internet group Baidu, in addition to Y Combinator, Khosla Ventures, DFJ and Dolby Family Ventures. It was preceded by $6m from DCVC, Khosla Ventures, DFJ, AME Cloud Ventures and OS Fund in 2015.
