Converge Bio has raised $5.5 million in seed funding led by TLV Partners.

WHAT IT DOES

Converge Bio is a generative AI hub for Biotech and Pharma that allows the accelerated discovery and development of drugs that use large language models (LLMs). 

The platform supplies a library of foundational models across all biological languages that can be amplified and adjusted for specific tasks with Converge Bio’s data enrichment pipeline. 

Additionally, converge Bio provides a variety of generative AI-based offerings, including engineering antibodies for improved specificity and reduced side effects, identifying novel drug targets, or designing mRNA vaccines optimized to draw out strong immune responses. 

Converge Bio has developed partnerships with companies, including Teva, Compugen and BiomX.

"While we're already partnering with significant clients in the biotech space, what we're seeing today is just the first glimpse of Converge Bio's true potential," Dov Gertz, cofounder and CEO of Converge Bio, told MobiHealthNews in an email. 

"We will use the funds to expand our team of AI scientists and significantly broaden our platform's capabilities, unlocking new frontiers where Generative AI can dramatically accelerate biological R&D."

MARKET SNAPSHOT

In September, Converge Bio collaborated with Compugen. Convergence Bio's LLM-based technology supports Compugen's predictive discovery efforts in identifying novel immuno-oncology drug targets.

That same month, Converge Bio was selected for the AWS GenAI accelerator program in partnership with NVIDIA, Meta and Mistral AI. The company was slated to receive as much as $1 million in cloud credits to promote its GenAI platform for advanced AI in biology.

Another company in this space is Aion Labs, which in October launched ProPhet, a startup using artificial intelligence to locate small molecules for drug discovery. ProPhet was created following AION Labs' startup challenge focused on the AI-powered drug discovery of new high-affinity small molecules. The aim is to address the market need to speed up, refine and enhance the early stages of drug discovery.

In March, Aion Labs launched a new startup company CombinAble.AI, that was established to speed up the development of therapeutics by addressing challenges associated with antibody design. CombinAble.AI was formed following an AION Labs startup challenge aimed at developing an AI-based solution for therapeutic antibodies. The company will develop a platform that integrates AI with computational methods for biomolecule simulations aimed at developing new biotherapeutics.