AAA StoneWise stocks up with $100m

StoneWise stocks up with $100m

China-based drug discovery platform developer StoneWise has received $100m of series B and B-plus funding from investors including quantitative trading firm Susquehanna International Group, DealStreetAsia reported yesterday.

The series B round was led by Legend Capital, the venture capital firm formed by conglomerate Legend Holdings, while fellow VC firm Lightspeed China and Chinese state-backed private equity fund Greater Bay Area Homeland Investments co-led the series B-plus round.

CDH VGC, a VC arm of asset manager CDH Investments, took part in both rounds, as did VC firm Eastern Bell Capital and existing backers GL Ventures – a VC subsidiary of hedge fund manager Hillhouse Capital – Long Hill Capital and Linear Capital.

Founded in 2018, StoneWise has built a drug discovery platform for pharmaceutical companies that uses artificial intelligence technology to speed up the early-stage drug discovery process.

The company will use the capital injection to finance global recruitment and the development of its technology platform. It said it has raised four funding rounds in the past year, including a series A-plus round backed by unnamed investors sized in the millions of US dollars range.

StoneWise raised about $10m in a series A round in March 2020 led by Longhill Capital that also featured Linear Capital. It had previously received an undisclosed amount of funding from SIG Asia, an Asia-focused investment subsidiary of SIG.