BenchSci, a Toronto, Canada-based company that provides AI solutions for preclinical life sciences research and development (R&D), announced $95 million CAD Series D funding, bringing its total raised to $218 million CAD.
The round was led by Generation Investment Management, with participation from existing investors iNovia Capital, TCV, Golden Ventures, and F-Prime Capital.
The funds will be used to expand the company’s revolutionary AI drug discovery platform, ASCEND™ by BenchSci, which enables scientists to discover biological connections, dramatically reduce trial-and-error experimentation, and uncover risks early.
“Our focus will always be on what will drive the greatest impact for our customers,” said Liran Belenzon, CEO and co-founder of the Canadian-based BenchSci. “Thousands of scientists use our platform every day to move their most promising drug discovery projects forward faster. This investment is a validation of the incredible work of our team and the traction we have in the market with the largest pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the world. With the industry's 98% failure rate advancing medicines to patients in need, we’re grateful to partner with Generation, who shares our thesis that purpose-built, innovative AI must be deployed at scale within pharmaceutical R&D to solve the productivity crisis and bring novel medicines to patients years faster.”
BenchSci’s ASCEND platform empowers scientists at every stage of preclinical research, regardless of therapeutic area, by turning inaccessible, unstructured, and unstandardized experimental evidence from external and internal data sources into actionable insights.
Today, BenchSci’s software is used by 16 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and by over 50,000 scientists working at more than 4,500 leading research centers worldwide.
Company: Scinapsis Analytics Inc.
Raised: CAD $95.0M
Round: Series D
Funding Month: May 2023
Lead Investors: Generation Investment Management
Additional Investors:
Company Website: https://www.benchsci.com/
Software Category: Biomedical AI
About the Company: Founded in 2015 by Tom Leung, David Q. Chen, Elvis Wianda, and Liran Belenzon, BenchSci is an AI solution for drug discovery. BenchSci helps pharma organizations transform their R&D portfolio by surfacing the underlying biology of all diseases to revolutionize research and exponentially advance the speed and success of better medicine for patients. Its platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. The company’s mission is to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life-saving research and development. BenchSci has grown to over 400 employees and was recently ranked among the fastest-growing tech companies in North America by Deloitte.
Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230525005591/en/BenchSci-Raises-95-Million-Series-D-Funding-to-Enable-Drug-Discovery-Innovation-at-Scale-With-its-Groundbreaking-AI-Platform-ASCEND