AI-Driven Protein Design Company Profluent Bags $44M Funding

Profluent, an AI-driven protein design company, has raised an additional $35 million funding round, bringing its total raised capital to an impressive $44 million. The funding led by Spark Capital and supported by Insight Partners, Air Street Capital, and a syndicate of notable angel investors, including Jeff Dean from Google DeepMind, will fuel the company’s journey towards revolutionizing biomedicine.

Profluent is harnessing AI as a transformative force in deciphering the intricate language of life and transcending the conventional boundaries of protein engineering.

Unlike traditional methods reliant on arduous searches within nature or brute-force mutagenesis, Profluent’s cutting-edge AI models empower rapid exploration of vast combinatorial spaces, optimizing across multiple functional attributes with unprecedented precision.

This paradigm shift from unforeseen discovery to deliberate design holds immense promise for advancing healthcare and disease treatment modalities.

Adoption of AI and machine learning by Profluent

Founded in 2022 by Ali Madani, a former leader in machine learning research at Salesforce Research, and Alexander Meeske, an esteemed microbiology professor at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, the biomedical startup has quickly risen as a frontrunner in the field of AI-driven biotech.

With a seasoned executive team comprising Chief Business Officer Hilary Eaton and VP and Head of Gene Editing Peter Cameron, Profluent combines deep gene editing and business development expertise to drive innovative solutions forward.

The fresh funding will boost the advancement of its proprietary Large Language Models (LLMs) and datasets, enhance wet lab capabilities, and elevate CRISPR gene editing methodologies. These strategic initiatives are poised to catalyze the creation and validation of groundbreaking, functional proteins, ushering in a new era of precision medicine and therapeutic interventions.

“Our research at the forefront of AI has enabled Profluent to create large language models that begin to learn the blueprint of nature,” said Ali Madani, Profluent co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.

“We are moving biology from being constrained by what can be discovered in nature to being able to design precisely according to our needs via AI. The science is real, and the time is now to proactively create breakthrough medicines that can transform society,” he added.

Designing AI models like ChatGPT

Profluent’s technology has already garnered validation through a peer-reviewed publication in Nature Biotechnology, showcasing the first successful demonstration of LLMs generating entirely novel proteins with efficacy comparable to natural counterparts honed over millions of years of evolution.

Leveraging an AI model akin to the one powering ChatGPT, Profluent’s platform, ProGen, has pioneered the creation of antimicrobial proteins capable of eradicating bacteria in laboratory settings, laying a robust foundation for future biomedical innovations.

“As they advance the frontier of AI research in the life sciences, Ali and Profluent are making biology programmable for the first time,” said Fraser Kelton, General Partner at Spark Capital and former Head of Product at OpenAI.

“I joined OpenAI in 2020 when I realized the events of this past year were inevitable. We’re at the precipice of a similar change in biology. Just as ChatGPT can write compelling essays and emails, Profluent has developed AI that designs entirely new and functional proteins. Having seen firsthand what happens when the frontier of AI is advanced in a field, it was impossible to not be involved with Profluent and support their mission,” added Kelton.

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