Dimension Therapeutics, Inc.

2025年8月11日，专注于预测和重构生化分子相互作用以加速变革性疗法开发的AI公司Chai Discovery宣布完成7000万美元A轮融资。 本轮融资由Menlo Ventures领投，新投资者Yosemite、DST Global Partners、SV Angel、Avenir、DCVC等，以及现有投资者Thrive Capital、OpenAI、Dimension、Neo、Lachy Groom和Fred Ehrsam等共同参与。Menlo Ventures通过其与Anthropic共同设立的Anthology Fund进行投资，该基金致力于发掘和支持有前景的AI企业。 此次融资是在该公司Chai-2系列模型取得全新抗体设计基础模型突破后进行的，融资总额已达1亿美元。辉瑞前首席科学官Mikael Dolsten博士加入董事会。 创始人兼首席执行官Joshua Meier表示："突破性药物研发受困于昂贵的试错实验，进展极其缓慢。Chai Discovery致力于运用尖端AI技术将生物学从科学转化为工程学，实现从'发现'到'设计'的范式突破。" 公司由Joshua Meier（曾任Absci、Facebook AI、OpenAI）、Jack Dent（曾任Stripe工程与产品负责人）及AI研究员Matthew McPartlon、Jacques Boitreaud于2024年共同创立。 曾推动150个分子进入临床试验并促成36款药物获批的前辉瑞首席科学官Mikael Dolsten博士加入董事会，他表示："将生物学转化为工程学的使命令人振奋，这个卓越团队必将开创非凡成就。" 该公司去年完成由Thrive Capital、OpenAI和Dimension领投的3000万美元种子轮融资，随后开源了达到state-of-the-art水平的分子结构预测基础模型Chai-1.0。 上月发布的Chai-2实现了抗体设计领域颠覆性突破：在仅输入靶点抗原和抗原表位(epitope)条件下，可从头设计出成功率近20%的全新抗体。传统实验室方法通常需筛选上亿抗体，而此前计算方法成功率仅0.1%。 联合创始人Matthew McPartlon解释："此前的抗体开发如同大海捞针。而Chai-2相当于仅凭对锁具的描述就能精准铸钥——某公司耗时三年耗资500万美元的研发难题，我们用两周就通过实验验证了解决方案。" 融资将用于拓展Chai平台技术至更多未探索靶点，并开展精选合作伙伴计划。 Menlo Ventures合伙人Greg Yep表示："Chai团队创建的基础模型正变革药物研发，Chai-2引发生物技术界广泛接入需求。我们坚信Chai能加速创制更优药物。" 参考资料： https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250806670137/en/Chai-Discovery-Announces-%2470-million-Series-A-To-Transform-Molecular-Design --------- End --------- 感兴趣的读者，可以添加小邦微信加入读者实名讨论微信群。添加时请主动注明姓名-企业-职位/岗位或姓名-学校-职务/研究方向。

8月6日，旧金山，预测和重新编程生化分子之间相互作用以加速改变生命的疗法的人工智能公司Chai Discovery宣布完成7000万美元的A轮融资。 此次融资由Menlo Ventures领投，包括他们的Anthology Fund的投资，Anthropic与该基金合作旨在识别和支持有前景的人工智能公司，新投资者Yosemite、DST Global Partners、SV Angel、Avenir、DCVC等也参与其中，还包括现有投资者Thrive Capital、OpenAI、Dimension、Neo、Lachy Groom和Fred Ehrsam的支持。 Chai Discovery首席执行官兼联合创始人Joshua Meier表示：“改变游戏规则的药物和治疗进展太慢，受到昂贵的试错实验的阻碍。Chai Discovery的存在是为了突破这一领域的可能性，应用前沿人工智能将生物学从科学转变为工程，从而可以设计突破，而不仅仅是发现突破。” Chai由Joshua Meier（前人工智能药物发现公司Absci；Facebook AI；OpenAI）、Jack Dent（前Stripe工程师和产品负责人）以及人工智能研究人员Matthew McPartlon和Jacques Boitreaud于2024年创立。辉瑞前首席科学官Mikael Dolsten博士，负责将150种分子推进临床试验并导致36种获批药物，即将加入公司董事会。 Dolsten博士表示：“我很自豪能加入Chai Discovery，将生物学从科学重新定义为工程学。这将是一次令人难以置信的旅程，有一支令人难以置信的团队。” 去年，Chai Discovery完成了由Thrive Capital、OpenAI和Dimension领投的3000万美元种子轮融资。不久之后，他们发布了Chai-1，这是一个用于分子结构预测的开源基础模型，具有最先进的性能。 上个月，该团队公布了AI驱动的药物发现的进一步飞跃，他们的Chai-2突破提供了完全从头开始的抗体设计，命中率接近20%。相比之下，传统的基于实验室的方法通常必须筛选数百万到数十亿的抗体才能找到目标，而之前计算方法的最新水平仅为0.1%。 当只输入靶抗原和表位时，Chai‑2可以从头开始生成针对各种靶的成功结合物。这意味着研究目标抗原，一种特定的致病蛋白，如病毒或癌症类型的科学家，可以使用Chai-2从头开始设计全新的抗体，这些抗体可以击中正确的位置。 联合创始人Matthew McPartlon表示：“在Chai-2之前，这个过程与在一大堆钥匙中寻找适合锁的钥匙没有什么不同，但有数百万把钥匙。现在，这就像让一位锁匠根据你对锁的描述，设计出形状完全正确的钥匙。一家公司花了三年多的时间和500多万美元来解决一个问题。有了Chai-2，我们能够在两周内找到一个经过实验验证的解决方案。” 这笔资金将用于进一步开发Chai平台，将其应用于以前无法访问的靶点，并引入选定的合作伙伴。 Menlo Ventures合伙人Greg Yap表示：“Chai是一个杰出的技术团队，为生物学建立基础模型，以改变药物发现。Chai-2在抗体设计方面取得了惊人的进展，我们看到生物技术行业中有相当一部分人已经申请了Chai-2的使用权。在Menlo，我们对人工智能基础模型和技术支持的生物学进行了深入投资——我们相信Chai可以帮助更快地创造更好的药物。” 关注下方公众号，带你看世界!

At a time when few biotech venture capital firms are coming out of the gates, a Japan-focused investor is doing so and has closed a $200 million fund. AN Venture Partners, or ANV, initially outlined its $200 million target for the fund in a regulatory filing in November 2023, but it didn’t officially close until this June, the firm told Endpoints News . “We closed $200 million in 18 months, and I think in this environment that there are not a lot of people in that same conversation,” ANV managing partner Ken Horne said in an interview. Horne is joined by fellow US-based investment partner Ari Nowacek and Japan-based partners Takashi Futami and Jun Hashimoto. Since opening in 2022, the San Francisco and Tokyo shop has been able to corral capital from more than 20 limited partners. It helps that the firm has an “alliance” with one of the oldest and most well-known life sciences investors in the game, ARCH Venture Partners, which itself pulled together a $3 billion 13th fund last fall. ANV is one of a small crop of brand-new VC firms to have entered the life sciences sector in recent years, including Dimension, Curie.Bio and Cure Ventures, among others. Many of the top-tier biotech VC firms have re-upped with new funds in the past year, but there’s been a dearth of first-timers amid the market downturn. More freshman funds are in the works, but since fundraising can take years, they are operating and investing in stealth mode for now. That includes NEXTBio Capital, Luma Group and others. Horne said part of the appeal of ANV is that it offers a relatively new strategy for limited partners, rather than being another cookie-cutter early-stage biotech investment firm. In particular, ANV is focused on supporting Japanese innovation and taking it to a global stage with biotechs based in the US and elsewhere, Horne said. Many of the “Asia healthcare allocations” for investors have been focused on China for the past 20 years, he said. “Japan is a huge economy but stagnant, and there is a dearth of biotech in Japan, so for me it was like, ‘Maybe I could help my mother’s mother country out,'” Horne said of ANV’s origins. Over the decades, Japan has struggled to build out a booming biotech industry on par with the size of the US. The amount of VC dollars funneled into Japanese biotechs pales in comparison to US startups. “You can drop a pin in South San Francisco and draw a half-mile radius and have 100 times the enterprise value, or say in Kendall Square, than in Japan,” Horne said. But the country has long had a vibrant basic research scene, which has helped lead to many blockbuster drugs, and its scientific output ranks toward the top in the world in terms of number of Nobel laureates and patents, among other categories, Horne said. Those underpinnings are starting to lead to a more vibrant biotech sector, which has gotten a lift in recent years via high-level support from the government and capital commitments from some of the largest drugmakers in the country. Chugai unveiled a $200 million corporate VC arm in 2023, and Eisai established its VC outfit in 2019, with investments of roughly $25 million per year . To help plant its roots in Japan, ANV convinced local pharma giants, like Otsuka and Shionogi, to take part in the fund. Aside from its monetary contributions, ANV is also hosting events, like Science-to-Startup, and collaborating with university researchers and various government agencies to support the growing biotech scene in Japan. For now, many of ANV’s portfolio biotechs will likely be based in the US. “When I first started talking to our LPs, one of the first things I said was, ‘If you’re going to say you have to build these in Japan, this is not going to work. The way to break this chicken-and-the-egg cycle is to marry the interesting science in Japan with experienced capital in the US and the experienced entrepreneurs and executives in the US, and build a success case first,” Horne said. Eventually, that could lead to more homegrown Japanese biotechs with local leaders and investors, Horne said. A few biotechs are attempting to do the dual US-Japan route already, including cell therapy startup Shinobi Therapeutics . ANV is not an investor in Shinobi. “There is interest in Japan. The kindling is all there, and really, one big spark will set that off,” Horne said. ANV’s investment thesis is broad, with no clear therapeutic area or modality as a focus. It is also spreading its bets across stages, with the ability to do less than $1 million seed checks to help create new companies, all the way to Phase 2 big pharma spinouts that require more capital. So far, ANV has backed seven startups and could eventually help finance about 15 companies overall with the first fund, Horne said. Its roster includes mitophagy-focused Capacity Bio , gene writing startup Typewriter Therapeutics, next-gen RNAi biotech City Therapeutics and Cytokinetics-backed cardiometabolic company Imbria Pharmaceuticals . The other three portfolio companies are still working under the hood.