Insider Brief
- Isomorphic Labs raised $600M in its first external funding round led by Thrive Capital, with support from GV and Alphabet, to accelerate its AI-driven drug discovery efforts.
- Founded by Sir Demis Hassabis, the company uses its next-gen AI drug design engine — including AlphaFold 3 — to develop treatments across various therapeutic areas, with partnerships including Novartis and Eli Lilly.
- The funding will fuel continued R&D, clinical advancement of internal programs, and global team expansion as Isomorphic aims to redefine drug discovery through AI.
PRESS RELEASE — Isomorphic Labs, an AI-first drug design and development company, announced it has raised $600 Million in its first external funding round. The financing round is led by Thrive Capital, with participation from GV, and follow-on capital from existing investor, Alphabet.
Isomorphic Labs was founded with the ambition to leverage the power of AI to reimagine and accelerate drug discovery to bring much-needed treatments to millions of patients globally. The company aims to apply its pioneering AI drug design engine to deliver biomedical breakthroughs and is advancing drug design programs across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities.
“We’re excited to bring together a top-tier investor group with deep AI and life sciences expertise as we aim to transform this industry through an interdisciplinary approach,” said Isomorphic Labs founder and CEO, Sir Demis Hassabis. “This funding will further turbocharge the development of our next-generation AI drug design engine, help us advance our own programs into clinical development, and is a significant step forward towards our mission of one day solving all disease with the help of AI.”
Since its founding, the company has developed a number of next-generation AI models that come together to form its unified AI drug design engine that works across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. One example breakthrough model is AlphaFold 3, developed and released in May 2024 by Isomorphic Labs together with Google DeepMind, with the ability to accurately predict the structure and interactions of all of life’s molecules. Leveraging these state-of-the-art AI technologies, Isomorphic Labs has established a drug discovery portfolio consisting of partnered programs with pharmaceutical industry leaders Eli Lilly and Novartis, as well as internal programs primarily focused in oncology and immunology. Novartis and Isomorphic Labs recently expanded the scope of their original collaboration just over a year after initiating the relationship.
“At Thrive, we aim to invest in category-defining companies with singular conviction, and that has led us to Isomorphic Labs,” said Joshua Kushner, Founder and CEO of Thrive Capital. “We believe Isomorphic has earned a rare position to define a new age of drug discovery and design, and we are deeply inspired by their mission and the extraordinary progress they have made to date.”
The investment will accelerate Isomorphic Labs’ frontier AI research and development, to rapidly advance the company’s next-generation AI drug design engine. Isomorphic Labs will consequently be expanding its team of world-class talent as part of its next phase of growth.
“AI and machine learning have long held the promise of transforming drug discovery, yet few companies over the past decade have unlocked their full potential. After witnessing the extraordinary pace of innovation at Isomorphic Labs, we believe their pioneering approach will redefine AI-powered drug discovery,” said Dr. Krishna Yeshwant, Managing Partner at GV. “With Sir Demis Hassabis at the helm, Isomorphic has assembled an exceptional team at the intersection of life sciences and technology. We’re proud to support them as they advance the development of new treatments for patients.”
ABOUT ISOMORPHIC LABS
Isomorphic Labs was founded in 2021, with a mission to transform drug discovery with the power of artificial intelligence, ushering in a new era of biomedical breakthroughs. Isomorphic Labs is led by AI pioneer Sir Demis Hassabis, and its founding was built on the Nobel-winning AI breakthrough, AlphaFold. Isomorphic Labs, together with Google DeepMind, developed and released AlphaFold 3 in May 2024, a revolutionary AI model that can predict the structure and interactions of all of life’s molecules with unprecedented accuracy. Isomorphic Labs has built a world-leading AI drug design engine comprising foundational AI models that are capable of working across multiple therapeutic areas and drug modalities. The company is continually innovating on model architecture and developing cutting-edge capabilities to advance drug design. Isomorphic Labs is headquartered in London and has an office in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Isomorphic Labs is advancing a broad and ambitious drug design portfolio through partnered programs and wholly-owned internal programs.
