• Funding led by Mission BioCapital and Santé Ventures will accelerate AI-driven design and development of purpose-built miniprotein medicines across therapeutic applications
• The company today also announced the establishment of a hub-and-spoke business model that preserves and scales the company’s core technology platform, with specialized programs forming subsidiaries.

AI Proteins, a biotech company pioneering a new class of de novo medicines built from the ground up using artificial intelligence, today announced the closing of a $41.5 million Series A financing. The round was led by Mission BioCapital and Santé Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Lightchain Capital, Cobro Ventures, and others.

The financing will accelerate AI Proteins’ mission to unlock the next generation of transformative new medicines built from de novo miniproteins. The convergence of generative AI, synthetic biology, and robotics powers the company’s discovery platform and enables the creation of this novel class of therapeutics. AI Proteins’ modular miniproteins are created entirely from first principles, unconstrained by evolution or human bias, to achieve complete control over function, stability, solution behavior, and pharmacology. They can be tailored for sophisticated and diverse mechanisms of action, including targeted delivery or multispecific agents.

“Natural proteins evolved under selective pressures in the environment. They did not evolve to be modern medicine,” said Chris Bahl, PhD, Founder and CEO of AI Proteins. “Antibodies changed patient care but are limited by their natural origin. The next wave of biologic medicines will do things that are impossible for natural proteins because they’re made de novo. We start our design process with a target product profile and work backward to create the exact molecule needed. This level of control and precision wasn’t possible before. By industrializing the design-build-test cycle, we generate and optimize miniprotein candidates at speed and scale, and harvest massive datasets that we use to improve our models and accelerate our progress.”

AI Proteins has demonstrated the power and scalability of its platform through both internal programs and partnerships. The company announced a research collaboration and option agreement with Bristol Myers Squibb in December 2024, valued up to $400 million. Internally, AI Proteins has generated molecules against over 150 targets, with multiple programs demonstrating in vivo proof-of-concept. Beyond human therapeutics, AI Proteins’ platform opens new frontiers in diagnostics, agriculture, and reagent applications, where de novo miniproteins could replace or exceed the performance of naturally derived proteins.

“AI Proteins turned what has historically been artisanal science into a reproducible, scalable process capable of generating molecules across therapeutic domains,” said Steve Tregay, PhD, Managing General Partner at Mission BioCapital. “We see AI Proteins as a foundational company built to unlock an entirely new class of proteins.”

Unlike traditional biotech platforms that are often deprioritized after yielding a successful asset, AI Proteins is focusing on driving long-term innovation and shaping the future of de novo design. The company is protecting and expanding its core platform with the adoption of an LLC hub-and-spoke business model. By spinning out individual programs into focused subsidiaries, this approach ensures the discovery engine keeps advancing while enabling investors and partners to capture value from each new asset.

“AI Proteins has built a platform that’s not only scientifically differentiated, but operationally designed for scale,” said Omar Khalil, Managing Director at Santé Ventures. “This is a platform that can power a generation of new therapies and advancements across diverse fields.”

About AI Proteins

Boston-based AI Proteins is a biotech company on a mission to re-imagine protein therapeutics with a novel approach for designing entirely new proteins. Using AI-enabled design and a high-throughput drug discovery platform, AI Proteins creates de novo miniproteins optimized for a variety of therapeutic applications. Partnered with leading biopharmaceutical companies, AI Proteins continues to pursue collaborations across a wide variety of therapeutic areas in addition to advancing its internal pipeline. The AI Proteins platform can dramatically accelerate the development of lead therapeutic candidates ready for IND-enabling studies.

For more information, please visit aiproteins.com

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