Bioptimus raises $41M to develop a ‘GPT for biology’

A new French AI startup has raised $41 million to develop a basic AI model for biology.

just like OpenAI’s ChatGPT A super-smart generative AI tool capable of natural language conversations in text form has taken the world by storm. Bioptimus Taking that concept but specifically training its model for downstream biological applications — something that brings its own unique challenges, given that the required clinical training data tends to be sensitive, and not publicly available.

Co-founder and CEO of Bioptimus Jean-Philippe Vert Says the organization seeks to develop a greater understanding of biology by learning how it works from molecules to whole organisms. This, he says, will enable scientists and researchers to simulate the biological world to “predict disease outcomes” and develop more effective treatments. And it’s this simulation that Vert says makes its technology somewhat similar to ChatGPT’s underlying model.

“Basically, it’s like GPT in biology — but instead of creating text, we’re simulating biology,” he said in a statement.

hotbed

France emerged as something Hotbed for AI startupsWith generative AI companies across the country Securing the lion’s share of funds As of last year. Mega funding round included Mistral AI’s $640 million the installment H secured $220 millionAnd hug face A $235 million investment closed – all in the last 18 months.

Bioptimus, for its part, was founded only last year, but already had it Raised a $35 million seed round. It has now raised a total of $76 million from its foundation in less than a year, a testament not only to the current AI hype, but also to the backgrounds of Bioptimus’ six co-founders. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Rudolph JennatonFor example, was previously a senior research scientist at Amazon and Google. Vert, meanwhile, is not only the co-founder and CEO of Bioptimus, but also its chief research and development officer okinA The French Unicorn and still another AI-infused biotech startup with backers including GV.

This dual role hints at the origins of Bioptimus. Owkin uses AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery and has partnered with leading biopharmaceutical companies. As part of this work, Okin also collected a ton of multimodal patient data, which Bioptimus is using to train its base model.

Instead of creating a tangential unit within Okin that was focused on foundational models, it made more sense to create a separate entity.

“Building Biology [foundational models] Not a part of Owkin’s roadmap, but Owkin supports and is interested in partnering with a company like Bioptimus,” Vert explained to TechCrunch in an interview last year. “The training is massive [foundational models] Data volume, computing power and breadth of data systems require significant resources that are easy to unlock as a specific entity. As a ‘pure player’ in the foundational model, Bioptimus is better set up to do this.”

In the intervening months, Bioptimus on H-Optimus-0, an open source foundation model for pathology, was trained on millions of images to aid in the research and diagnosis of diseases such as cancer. However, with a new $41 million in the bank, the company is poised to further strengthen its AI platform with more diverse data sources covering a wider range of therapeutic areas, while it looks to develop more partnerships with the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

As part of this, it is preparing to release a new multi-model foundation model later this year, spanning the entire biological spectrum, which could drive development in sectors including medicine, biotech, and even cosmetics.

“Beyond pharmaceuticals, this model will unlock limitless possibilities across many other industries, driving biological discoveries in ways we are only beginning to imagine,” Vert said.

Bioptimus’ latest cash injection was led by US venture capital firm Cathay Innovations with participation from Sofinova Partners, BPFrance, Andera Partners, Hitachi Ventures, Boom Capital Ventures, Pomifer Capital, Sunrise and several angel investors.