A drug discovery startup using machine learning to shorten the process of finding the novel molecules used in pharmaceuticals has gotten the attention of big investors after a cooling couple of years for AI-backed health-tech deals.
Therapeutics startup Achira came out of the Upper East Side woodwork with a $33 million seed round to advance simulation models used to identify the proteins and other particles that influence diseases, the company recently announced. The start-up, which shares researchers with Memorial Sloan Kettering, uses simulators and neural networks, the advanced computing technology behind the boom in machine learning, to shortcut the discovery process, which is typically equated to searching for a needle in a haystack.
Achira is the latest drug discovery startup attempting to use AI to speed up the time it takes to bring a new drug from the lab to market, which currently takes roughly a decade and $2 billion. That dream has yet to come to fruition but it has not stopped investors from pouring billions of dollars into the field.
The company has gained the attention of multinational technology giant Nvidia, one of the world’s biggest suppliers of AI software, which participated in the fundraise led by Dimension, a venture capital firm focused on biotech and life sciences startups. Nvidia, through its venture capital arm Nventures, has more than 20 companies in its portfolio, including several therapeutics companies. Investment firms Amplify and Compound also pitched in to the Achira seed round.
Over the last two years, venture capital investments in AI-based health care and life sciences companies have slowed and steadied, after the peak in investment activity in 2021. While the number of deals in New York declined in the first three quarters of 2024, the value of deals rose to $1 billion, according to data provided by the research company PitchBook, indicating that investors have become more discerning in the companies they back.
Achira is an example of the investments in AI-driven therapeutics chugging along in that landscape. Dimension’s portfolio also includes Chai Discovery, another drug discovery company using a predictive neural network, which came out of New York and raised $30 million in seed funding last summer.
Achira is led by Dr. John Chodera, who runs a computational modeling lab out of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Zuckerman Research Center.
