Deep Genomics has raised $180m funding in Series C financing round to expand its artificial intelligence (AI) discovery platform for ‘Programmable’ RNA therapeutics and scale its portfolio into the clinic.
The financing round is led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, with other new investors including Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), Alexandria Venture Investments, Khosla Ventures, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Amplitude Ventures, Magnetic Ventures, and True Ventures.
Founded in 2015, Deep Genomics uses AI and machine learning to programme and prioritise RNA therapies for almost all genetic diseases.
The funding will also be used to expand the company’s AI Workbench platform, a suite of predictive systems that has made billions of predictions across the entire human genome, for many genetic variants, and novel compounds.
The proceeds will also support Deep Genomics’ plans to advance four programmes into the clinic by 2023 and start a large-scale effort to generate biological data across 100 genes to identify novel targets, mechanisms, and preclinical programmes.
Deep Genomics founder and CEO Brendan Frey said: “This financing further validates the significant advances in our AI discovery platform and growth of our proprietary preclinical pipeline.
“Our AI Workbench enables us to precisely program RNA therapeutics, much like computer code, to perform a wide range of functions.
“This AI Workbench, paired with terabytes of proprietary data, enables us to tackle the enormous complexity of RNA biology and identify novel targets, mechanisms, and RNA therapeutics, which cannot be found without AI.”