Isomorphic Labs, the startup that spun out of Google DeepMind and focuses on AI-driven drug discovery, announced it has raised $2.1 billion in a new Series B funding round.
The new funding round was led by the US VC firm Thrive Capital, which was already an investor in the company. In addition, existing backers participated, such as Isomorphic’s parent company, Alphabet, and its venture capital arm, GV. Notably, new top-tier investors also joined the cap table, including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Google’s growth fund CapitalG, and the UK Sovereign AI Fund.
It is worth noting that Isomorphic Labs raised $600 million last May in its first external funding round.
Isomorphic Labs is researching treatments for cancer and immune disorders. Its operations are built on software developed by DeepMind, which includes the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold, a system that predicts protein structures.
According to the company, the new funds will be strategically directed to the following areas:
The development and evolution of the company’s AI drug design engine, called IsoDDE.
The acceleration and expansion of its pipeline of therapeutic programs.
Attracting top-tier talent in the fields of Artificial Intelligence, engineering, drug design, and clinical research.
Isomorphic Labs’ CEO and founder, Demis Hassabis, who also heads Google’s AI division, welcomed the new funding, calling it a “massive vote of confidence.” “This funding round is a massive vote of confidence from a diverse group of top-tier international investors in our AI-first approach to drug design and development. Now that we have shown our approach is fundamentally sound, our focus is on scaling our technology to its full potential. This capital injection allows us to build out our drug design engine at scale, driving us forward in our mission to solve all disease.”