EvolutionaryScale, an artificial intelligence startup focused on biology, on Tuesday secured USD 142 million in seed funding, according to Reuters The funding round was led by prominent investors Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Lux Capital. Other notable participants included Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the venture capital arm of NVIDIA.
Lux Capital co-founder and managing partner, Josh Wolfe, referred to this development as a "ChatGPT moment for biology." He highlighted that EvolutionaryScale has created the first large language model capable of designing novel proteins and other biological systems. Alex Rives, the company's chief scientist, mentioned that their AI could revolutionize applications ranging from accelerating drug discovery to engineering microbes that can break down environmental plastic waste.
The field of using AI to engineer new biological systems is currently attracting significant attention. In a related development, Microsoft-backed OpenAI announced a partnership with French drugmaker Sanofi in May to enhance drug development using AI.
However, the advancement of generative AI in biology has also raised concerns among experts about its potential misuse, particularly in creating bioweapons by developing harmful pathogens or toxins.
EvolutionaryScale plans to utilise the new funding to train its next generation of AI models and expand its team to collaborate with the biotech industry. The company will release models named ESM3, with the smaller ESM3 model being open-sourced for non-commercial research. AWS and NVIDIA will make these models, including the largest ESM3 model, available for commercial use.
(REUTERS)
