From left: Annette Obika-Mbatha, Krishan Bhatt, Dr Simon Kohl, Agrin Hilmkil, Alex Bridgland and Henry Kenlay. Image: © Latent Labs
Latent Labs pushes the frontiers of generative biology, CEO Simon Kohl said.
Latent Labs, a start-up building generative artificial intelligence (AI) models to accelerate drug discovery and research has emerged from stealth with $50m in total funding.
The funding includes a $40m Series A raise co-led by Radical Ventures and Sofinnova Partners, with the participation of Flying Fish, Isomer, as well as its existing investors 8VC, Kindred Capital and Pillar VC.
Angel investors including Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean, AI company Cohere’s founder Aidan Gomez and ElevenLabs founder Mati Staniszewski also took part in the funding round.
The start-up was founded in 2023 by Dr Simon Kohl, a former co-lead at Google DeepMind’s protein design team as well as a senior research scientist on DeepMind’s AlphaFold2 – a Nobel prize winning project.
According to the company co-headquartered in London and San Francisco, Latent Labs is advancing the developments made by AlphaFold’s application of machine learning technology, which improved protein structure prediction. Now, the start-up is aiming to empower researchers to computationally create new therapeutic molecules, such as antibodies or enzymes to “open new paths to personalised medicines”.
Moreover, scientists working with the start-up’s lab can utilise its AI-driven research platform to design proteins with more stable molecular features, expediting drug development timelines and raising clinical success rates, the company said.
The life sciences industry in Europe is booming, having seen $8bn in venture capital investments in just 2024, while the first quarter of this year has already seen investments of more than $1.2bn so far.
“Every biotechnology or pharmaceutical company wants to be at the forefront of technology to find the best therapeutic molecules, yet not all are in a position to develop the most advanced AI models for the job. That’s where Latent Labs comes in,” said Kohl, who is also the start-up’s CEO.
“We push the frontiers of generative biology, giving our partners instant access to tools that accelerate their drug design programs.”
Aaron Rosenberg, a partner at Radical Ventures is confident in Latent Labs’ potential to develop new protein designs. He said: “Such a capability has never before been possible, one which can benefit humanity in such a profound way. Accelerating the development of more effective cures for disease, Latent is at the vanguard of innovation in computational biology, and we are excited to join them on this journey.”
AI has had a major impact in drug discovery techniques in recent years, with major tech companies, including AMD, Nvidia and AWS, working with drug creation companies to boost their discovery power.
While start-ups including Basecamp Research and Bioptimus have raised tens of millions to develop dedicated AI models trained on specific natural sciences data. Sofinnova Partners, the VC which co-led Latent Lab’s Series A, is also an investor in Bioptimus.
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