Chai Discovery, a biotech firm supported by OpenAI, announced Monday the closure of a $130 million Series B funding round, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. The capital infusion is earmarked for advancing its artificial intelligence models designed for molecular and drug discovery, a move projected to impact the efficiency of pharmaceutical development.
The Series B round was co-led by General Catalyst and Oak HC/FT, according to the company's announcement. Additional participants included existing investors such as Menlo Ventures, OpenAI, Dimension, Thrive Capital, Neo, Yosemite venture fund, Lachy Groom, and SV Angel. New investors Glade Brook and Emerson Collective also contributed to the round. This latest funding brings Chai Discovery's total capital raised to over $225 million since its founding in 2024.
Chai Discovery operates within a sector increasingly leveraging AI to accelerate drug development processes. The company's stated ambition is to develop a "computer-aided design suite" for molecules, specifically focusing on predicting biochemical molecule interactions for therapeutic applications. In August, Menlo Ventures led the firm's $70 million Series A round, describing Chai's work as building foundation models tuned for drug discovery to reprogram molecules for cures.
The company's technology portfolio includes the Chai 1 AI model, introduced last year, and the recently released Chai 2 model. Chai 2 is reported to demonstrate significant improvements in success rates over other methods for de novo antibody design, which involves creating custom antibodies from fundamental components rather than modifying existing ones. Josh Meier, co-founder and CEO of Chai Discovery, stated in a prepared release that the firm's "latest models can design molecules that have properties we'd want from actual drugs, and tackle challenging targets that have been out of reach." Meier's professional background includes prior roles in research and engineering at Facebook and OpenAI.
