Basecamp Research Initiates Genetic Medicine Collaboration with the Liu Laboratory and Completes $60 Million Series B Financing
Basecamp Research’s industry-leading artificial intelligence platform trains on its proprietary data to design sophisticated biological solutions
Collaboration with the Liu Lab to focus on next-generation genetic medicines with potentially transformative impact
Focus on emerging technologies for first-in-class therapeutic collaborations aided by the appointment of Anupama Hoey as Chief Commercial Officer
LONDON, Oct. 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Basecamp Research, an AI company dedicated to solving the most pressing challenges in the life sciences by exploring beyond known biology, today announced it has entered a multi-year collaboration with the laboratory of Dr. David R. Liu at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and also has completed a $60 million Series B financing led by Singular. Dr. Liu is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Core Member at the Broad.
The Basecamp Research and the Liu Lab collaboration anticipates advancing new approaches to programmable genetic medicines that have the potential to transform treatments for a wide range of diseases. In its equity financing, Basecamp Research has attracted prominent investors and industry leaders at the intersection of artificial intelligence and the life sciences, bringing the total funding Basecamp Research has raised to date to $85 million.
“We are pushing past AI’s limits in biological design by doubling down on solving the fundamental data gap that the entire biotech industry faces,” said Dr. Glen Gowers, co-founder and CEO of Basecamp Research. “Basecamp Research is using its technology to generate new and deeper insights, going beyond known biology and each day expand what we can offer to our partners in the biopharma ecosystem.”
In its collaboration with Dr. Liu’s laboratory, Basecamp Research is pioneering the development of novel fusion proteins and other large molecules to enable the next generation of genetic medicines.
Dr. Gowers stated, “In our collaboration, we bring together the Liu Lab’s pioneering work in genome editing and leading wet-lab development expertise with Basecamp Research’s proprietary datasets from around the globe and our in-house AI models designed to surpass the limits of human-based design.”
$60 million Series B Financing
Basecamp Research’s Series B financing was led by Singular, with additional investors including S32, redalpine, André Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of Roche, Feike Sijbesma, Chair of Royal Philips and Former CEO of DSM, and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever. Returning investors participating in the Series B include True Ventures and Hummingbird Ventures.
The Series B proceeds will go toward scaling the pace and volume of Basecamp Research’s data collection — growing its foundational dataset that already contains 100 times more advanced biological systems than the public databases most-used by pharma researchers. Building on breakthroughs such as outperforming AlphaFold-2 and making enzyme design programmable, Basecamp Research will also continue to strengthen its AI capabilities, investing heavily in compute and working on a new generation of foundational models to tackle increasingly complex tasks. The funding round follows 15 successful commercial bioscience partnerships across a wide range of industries. As part of its expansion, Basecamp Research is adding to its management team, biotech veteran Anupama Hoey as Chief Commercial Officer, who brings more than 20 years of leadership experience and has transacted multiple biopharma deals worth more than $5 billion.
S32’s Andy Conrad, former CEO of Google’s Verily Life Sciences, commented, “Basecamp Research has dedicated itself to solving some of the toughest challenges in the life sciences and is taking a truly first principles approach to address questions that the biopharma industry hasn’t even known to ask.”
Raffi Kamber, General Partner at Singular, said, “The team at Basecamp Research is building powerful AI models that truly understand the breadth and complexity of biology. Their knowledge graph offers a step change in the performance of AI-based design and a fundamental shift in how life science teams innovate. We’re thrilled to support a visionary company and team poised to reshape an entire industry.”
Basecamp Research Co-founder Dr. Oliver Vince added, “We’ve used AI to solve a wide range of challenging bioscience problems, and we look forward to continuing to work with partners on breakthrough projects. We are thrilled by this momentum and look forward to continuing to go beyond the limits of today’s known biology.”
About Basecamp
Basecamp Research is solving the most pressing challenges in the life sciences by exploring beyond known biology. We build foundational AI models on top of the world’s largest, ethically sourced database of biological information to give AI the most complete understanding of biology ever. This allows us to design more complex biological systems than anyone else with performance improving dramatically as AI sees more diversity and context. Basecamp Research collaborates with biopharma companies and academic research institutions to design novel protein sequences and biological systems that can transform therapeutic research and development. Our team of explorers, scientists and policy experts proudly work with more than 100 biodiversity partners across the globe, allowing us to deliver breakthroughs that can have a profound impact on healthcare and the lives of patients.
For more information, visit basecamp-research.com.
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SOURCE Basecamp Research
