AI-driven biotech startup Chai Discovery has announced a $70 million Series A round to accelerate the development of its molecular design platform. The round was led by Menlo Ventures and included investment from its Anthology Fund, a joint initiative with Anthropic. New backers Yosemite, DST Global Partners, SV Angel, Avenir, and DCVC joined the round, alongside existing investors Thrive Capital, OpenAI, Dimension, Neo, Lachy Groom, and Fred Ehrsam.

This new funding brings Chai’s total raised to $100 million. While the company has not disclosed its valuation, the significant backing reflects growing confidence in Chai’s AI-led approach to drug discovery.

AI in the Lab: A New Era for Molecular Science

Chai operates in the emerging field of AI-powered drug development, where deep learning models are used to predict and design new biochemical compounds. The goal is to speed up the discovery of therapies by replacing trial-and-error lab work with precise computational modeling.

“Progress towards game-changing drugs and treatments is far too slow, stymied by costly trial-and-error experiments. Chai Discovery exists to push the boundaries of what’s possible in this field, applying frontier AI to transform biology from science to engineering, so that breakthroughs can be designed rather than simply discovered.”

Joshua Meier, CEO and co-founder

One of Chai’s most significant advances is the launch of its Chai‑2 foundation model, which enables de novo antibody design with a nearly 20% hit rate. For context, traditional methods often require screening millions to billions of antibodies to find hits, and computational methods previously hovered around 0.1%.

Investing in Tech and Talent to Scale Discovery

The company will use the new capital to expand the Chai platform’s capabilities and apply it to drug targets that have historically been difficult or impossible to pursue. They also plan to onboard select partners to integrate the platform into real-world drug discovery pipelines.

In particular, the funds will help advance the performance of Chai‑2 and related models. Chai aims to broaden the scope of diseases and biological targets it can address, ultimately helping biotech companies design therapies faster and more accurately.

A Team With Deep AI and Biotech Roots

Chai Discovery was founded in 2024 by Joshua Meier (formerly of Absci, Facebook AI, OpenAI), Jack Dent (formerly an engineering and product leader at Stripe), and AI researchers Matthew McPartlon and Jacques Boitreaud. The team brings together expertise from top-tier AI labs and biotech ventures.

The startup recently added industry veteran Mikael Dolsten, M.D., Ph.D.—former Chief Scientific Officer at Pfizer—to its board. During his time at Pfizer, Dolsten helped advance 150 molecules into clinical trials and saw 36 drugs through to approval.

“I’m proud to join Chai Discovery and redefine biology from science into engineering,” Dolsten said. “This is going to be an incredible journey with an incredible team.”

Chai made waves last year with the release of Chai‑1, an open-source foundation model for molecular structure prediction. Chai‑2, its latest model, builds on that work and delivers significant leaps in performance. When given only a target antigen and epitope, the model can generate successful binders from scratch—eliminating the need to sift through vast libraries of potential matches.

Backing from AI and Biotech Heavyweights

Alongside lead investor Menlo Ventures, Chai’s Series A included continued support from Thrive Capital, OpenAI, and Dimension. Several well-known tech and biotech figures have also joined the cap table, including Lachy Groom and Fred Ehrsam.

“Chai is an exceptional technical team building foundation models for biology to transform drug discovery. Chai-2 demonstrates amazing progress in antibody design, and we have seen a meaningful fraction of the biotech industry already apply for Chai-2 access. At Menlo, we invest deeply in both AI foundation models and technology-enabled biology–we believe Chai can help create better medicines faster.”

Greg Yap, Partner at Menlo Ventures

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/companies/funding-news/ai-driven-biotech-chai-discovery-raises-70m-backed-by-openai/
Originally Posted: Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:14:07 +0000