Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital fund that launched Moderna, is planning to create a spree of new biotechs harnessing generative artificial intelligence to power drug discovery after securing $3.6bn in funding from its financial backers.
As part of its latest fundraise, the venture firm raised $2.6bn for its eighth fund and $1bn to deploy across parallel funds, which will invest in specific sectors, such as certain diagnostics or therapeutics. Flagship is also likely to raise extra money for its eighth fund later this year, helping it meet a target of $3bn for the investment vehicle.
Much of the investments from Flagship’s fund VIII will be focused on platforms that use AI in novel ways to develop drugs, according to Noubar Afeyan, who founded Flagship in 2000. “Each of the pools of capital we raise supports around 25 companies; I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of [the companies in fund VIII] are but for AI we wouldn’t do them,” said Afeyan.