January 30, 2023 -- Biotech firm Atomic AI recently announced it the closing of a $35 million Series A round led by Playground Global, with participation from 8VC, Factory HQ, Greylock, NotBoring, AME Cloud Ventures, GitHub’s ex-CEO Nat Friedman, Doug Mohr, Curai CEO Neal Khosla, and UC Berkeley Professor and Arc Institute co-founder Patrick Hsu.
The biotechnology company combines machine learning with structural biology for RNA drug discovery.
"To create effective and safer small molecules against undruggable diseases, there is a significant need to develop tools that can accurately predict 3D RNA structures," Raphael Townshend, founder and CEO of Atomic AI, said in a statement. "Atomic AI is oriented at the cutting edge of AI, RNA, and structural biology."
The firm said its artificial intelligence-enabled 3D RNA structure engine, which has previously been described in Science, generates RNA structural datasets, integrating machine learning foundation models with large-scale in-house experimental wet-lab biology for RNA drug discovery.
In particular, Atomic AI's technology can discover structured, ligandable RNA motifs at unprecedented speed and accuracy, a critical barrier for current approaches in small-molecule drug discovery against RNA, the firm said.
Beyond RNA-targeted molecules, the integrated platform will enable the design of RNA-based medicines and RNA tools.
Atomic AI previously raised a $7 million seed round led by 8VC and joined by Greylock, Factory HQ, AME Cloud Ventures, AIX Ventures, Xu Ventures, Doug Mohr, Antheia CEO Dr. Christina Smolke, and Stanford Bioengineering professor Drew Endy.