Exscientia, a UK-based drug discovery technology developer backed by several corporate investors, filed for an initial public offering in the US on Friday, using a customary $100m placeholder amount.
The company has also secured a commitment from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to raise $35m in a concurrent private placement.
Founded in 2012, Exscientia has created an artificial intelligence-based software platform for end-to-end target identification, drug design and patient selection used in its drug development.
The company has three assets in phase 1 trials including one – EXS21546 – developed internally and two in partnership with pharmaceutical firm Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma.
Proceeds from the offering and private placement will go toward further platform development and the completion of a phase 1 study and proof-of-concept studies for EXS21546.
Exscientia will dedicate some $70m to its pandemic preparedness programme and will use the remaining cash for ongoing drug discovery programmes, general corporate purposes and strategic investments.
The company had secured $225m in a series D round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, a vehicle for telecoms and internet conglomerate SoftBank, in April this year.
Pharmaceutical firms Novo and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) also took part in the round, as did Pivotal BioVenture Partners, a subsidisary of property developer Nan Fung, as well as GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Laurion Capital, Hongkou, the Abu Dhabi state-owned Mubadala Investment Company and funds managed by BlackRock.
The round could potentially swell to $525m thanks to an additional $300m commitment made by SoftBank that can be drawn at Exscientia’s discretion.
The series D followed a $100m series C round closed a month earlier with a $40m extension from BlackRock that added to a $60m first tranche led by Novo in May 2020, when BMS, drug discovery firm Evotec and unnamed limited partners of GT Healthcare also invested.
GT Healthcare, Evotec and pharmaceutical firm Celgene (now a subsidiary of BMS) had participated in a $26m series B round for the company in 2019, two years after Evotec had injected $17.7m.
Commercialisation firm Frontier IP owns a 2.4% stake in Exscientia, having helped establish the company. Shareholders owning more than 5% include Evotec, SoftBank, Novo, Celgene, GT Healthcare and BlackRock.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Barclays Capital have been appointed as underwriters for the proposed offering, which is slated to take place on the Nasdaq Global Market.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.
