Former OpenAI science chief Kevin Weil launches Warp Sciences with a $215M Series A to apply AI and robotics to drug discovery
馃挜 Introducing Warp Sciences, a new company applying AI and robotics to help the world develop new medicines faster. We鈥檝e raised a $215M Series A led by @lightspeedvp to bring frontier AI out of the browser and into the lab, and build scientific capacity here in America. I co-founded Warp with my long-time friend @dpatil, FAIR co-founder @manohar_paluri, and drug hunter Sol Reisberg. The early team is full of incredible people like @bkspears9, who helped achieve Q>1 fusion at LLNL.
Context
Robotic labs that generate their own training data could speed up how new medicines are made and move chemistry work back to the US.
Kevin Weil previously led product and science efforts at OpenAI and is now Warp's chief executive. According to Bloomberg, the round values the company at $865 million after the money.
Deep dive
On October 22, Kevin Weil introduced Warp Sciences, a new company applying AI and robotics to help develop medicines faster. He said it raised a $215M Series A led by Lightspeed to bring frontier AI out of the browser and into the lab, and to build scientific capacity in America. He named his cofounders as DJ Patil, FAIR cofounder Manohar Paluri and drug hunter Sol Reisberg.
Bloomberg reported, as relayed by Investing.com, that IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also joined, putting the post money valuation at $865 million. Per that report, Warp is targeting the labor intensive step where chemists make hundreds or thousands of variants of a promising molecule, work drug makers have largely outsourced to Chinese firms such as WuXi AppTec. Warp plans fully automated labs, starts with about 20 people, and its chemists will wear cameras and sensor gloves to collect data for its own AI models, according to the report.
Business Wire carried the company's announcement describing its focus on US chemistry services for drug research. The claims about speed are the company's own goals, and no results have been published yet.
What to expect next
Watch for Warp to open its first automated lab, sign drug makers as customers, and publish any data showing faster or cheaper molecule work. Also watch how US policy on Chinese contract research firms shapes demand. Rival AI for science startups may raise similar rounds as investors back robotic labs as a source of training data. Any partnership with a large drug maker would be an early sign of demand.