Demis Hassabis, the CEO and co-founder of Google DeepMind, created a drug development artificial intelligence (AI) business that has raised $600 million in its first round of external funding.
Advanced AI models are being used by Isomorphic Labs to transform and expedite drug discovery across several therapeutic domains.
Notably, the business claimed that AlphaFold, which gave Hassabis a Nobel Prize for figuring out the structure of almost every protein in existence and resolving a half-century-old biological puzzle, served as the foundation for its establishment.
By developing its AI drug design engine and driving therapeutic programs into clinical development, Isomorphic hopes to discover a treatment for every illness. According to Hassabis, the startup employs an interdisciplinary strategy.
Having shared the Nobel Prize with DeepMind researcher John Jumper for AlphaFold2, Hassabis said the financing is a “significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI.”
With participation from GV and follow-on funding from current backer Alphabet, the parent company of Google and Google DeepMind, the round was led by Thrive Capital. Alphabet’s venture arm is called GV.
To precisely forecast the structure and interactions of biological molecules, the startup’s unique AI platform incorporates innovations like AlphaFold 3, which was created in collaboration with Google DeepMind.
Its medication portfolio consists of internal cancer and immunology research as well as collaborations with industry titans Novartis and Eli Lilly.
The money will be used by Isomorphic Labs to grow its workforce and quicken its AI research and development.
Raise $400 Million for Agility Robotics
The Information reports that Agility Robotics is raising $400 million in additional capital. The firm is now valued at $1.75 billion after the fundraising round.
WP Global Partners’ venture arm is leading the investment, and SoftBank is allegedly planning to join as well.
Digit, a humanoid robot that has been widely used in the retail and eCommerce warehousing, logistics, and manufacturing industries, was created by a spinout from Oregon State University.
Digit is used at Amazon warehouses and by other clients to perform monotonous jobs like moving bins in retail spaces.
Digit is a 5’9″ robot that can lift 35 pounds and can dock and charge itself on its own.
According to the firm, its robots can cover the one million open material handling jobs across all industries.
Agility Robotics offers a robots-as-a-service plan that is subscription-based. Another option for customers would be to buy a fleet of robots.
A Software Company Gets $146 Million
Temporal Technologies reported that company has raised $146 million in a Series C round for a valuation of $1.7 billion. Temporal Technologies’ robust execution platform is utilized in the eCommerce, payments, and aviation sectors.
With StepStone Group, Amplify Partners, Index Ventures, MongoDB Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Conversion Capital, Hanwha Next Generation Opportunity Fund, and 137 Ventures participating, Tiger Global is leading the round.
With this round, Temporal has raised $350 million in total funding.
The additional investment will accelerate the development of its managed service Temporal Cloud’s offering and broaden the use of Temporal’s robust execution platform to all kinds of AI use cases.
Temporal intends to continue investing in R&D for AI use cases and step up its go-to-market initiatives in order to support this expansion.
Temporal provides tools to assist developers in creating applications that can continue to function even in the event of a server failure or system crash. This means developers may concentrate on creating better applications instead of wasting time worrying about how to maintain system stability.