Telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 led a $225m series D round for UK-based, artificial intelligence-equipped drug developer Exscientia yesterday.
The round also featured pharmaceutical firms Novo and Bristol-Myers Squibb in addition to Pivotal BioVenture Partners, the life sciences venture capital fund formed by property developer Nan Fung’s Life Sciences subsidiary.
The Abu Dhabi-owned Mubadala Investment Company filled out the round together with Farallon Capital, Casdin Capital, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Laurion Capital, Hongkou Capital and funds managed by Blackrock.
SoftBank has also offered a $300m commitment the company can choose to draw on should it decide to expand the round.
Exscientia applies AI to patient-relevant data in order to inform the design process for precision therapeutics. It was spun out of University of Dundee in 2012.
The company said the technology has produced two drug candidates currently in phase 1 clinical trials, and the series D funds will go to platform development and the progression of its pipeline.
Eric Chen, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers, which manages Vision Fund 2, said: “We believe Exscientia’s innovative use of AI to discover and design better quality drugs with greater efficiency has the potential to create important medicines faster than ever before.
“With the convergence of technology and biology, drug discovery is rapidly evolving in ways that will reshape the industry. The Exscientia team have been leaders in AI-based drug discovery since the field’s inception and we believe they will continue shaping its future.”
The series D close came less than two months after Exscientia completed a $100m series C round that included Novo, Bristol Myers Squibb and funds managed by BlackRock as well as drug discovery and development services provider Evotec and private equity firm GT Healthcare Capital Partners.
The company had secured $26m in an early 2019 series B round featuring Evotec, GT Healthcare Capital and pharmaceutical firm Celgene, medicine developer Evotec and GT Healthcare Capital Partners. It had already received $17.7m from Evotec in 2017 and its other backers include Frontier IP.
Image courtesy of Exscientia.
