US-based Insitro, a drug discovery and development startup that utilizes machine learning and biology to transform drug discovery, raised US$ 400M in a Series C funding round on 15 March 2021.
Investors: The funding round was led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), with participation from current investors Andreessen Horowitz, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Casdin Capital, BlackRock, ARCH Venture Partners, Foresite Capital, GV, Third Rock Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, HOF Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments. The new investors included Temasek, Softbank Investment Advisors, an undisclosed leading global investment group and an undisclosed leading payer-provider health system in the United States.
Purpose of the funding: The funds raised will be utilized for the expansion of the Insitro platform, providing resources to access enabling datasets.
About Insitro
Founded in 2018 by Daphne Koller, Insitro is a data-driven drug discovery and development company that leverages machine learning and data generation to transform the way drugs are discovered and delivered to patients. It uses state-of-the-art technologies from bioengineering to generate high-throughput, functional genomic data sets to build predictive models helping to design and develop effective therapeutics. Insitro is headquartered in Southern San Francisco.
Insitro’s approach towards drug discovery and development rests on three pillars:
- Machine learning-enabled statistical genetics on deeply phenotyped human cohorts to discover targets and patient segments with the potential to inform clinical strategy.
- Predictive cell-based disease models to discover targets, patient segments and drugs.
- Machine learning-enabled therapeutics design.
What the founder has to say: “For Insitro, 2020 was a year of incredible growth and progress toward our founding vision of bringing the predictive powers of machine learning to drug discovery. We built out and demonstrated the capabilities of our target discovery platform in our Gilead collaboration in NASH, receiving the first of our operational milestone payments and put in place an outstanding collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb in ALS. We also took a big step forward towards moving from targets to medicines through the acquisition of Haystack Sciences, a high throughput chemistry platform that enables ML-driven molecular design and we recruited Dr. Roger Perlmutter to our board to help guide our drug discovery efforts.” — Daphne Koller, PhD, founder and CEO of Insitro.
What the investors have to say: “Since our initial investment in 2020, Insitro has become an increasingly strong fit for our Innovations and Health Care strategy, as the company has progressed towards the ambitious vision of redefining drug discovery and development through the application of machine learning. As a long-term investor, CPP Investments looks forward to continuing to support Insitro in driving future innovations in healthcare.” — Leon Pedersen, Managing Director and Head of Thematic Investing.
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