A new French AI startup has raised $41 million to develop a foundational AI model for biology.

It’s just like that OpenAI’s ChatGPT Taking the world by storm for a super-smart generative AI tool capable of natural language conversation in text form, Bioptimus Taking that concept but training its model specifically for downstream biological applications – something that has its own unique set of challenges, as the data needed in clinical training tends to be sensitive, and not available to the public.

Bioptimus co-founder and CEO Jean-Philippe Vert says the company is looking to develop a greater understanding of biology by learning how it works from raw data consisting of molecules to whole organisms. This, he said, will enable scientists and researchers to simulate the biological world to “predict disease outcomes” and develop more effective treatments. And it’s this simulation that Vert says makes its technology a little more similar to what the basic model of ChatGPT is.

“In fact, it’s like GPT in biology – but instead of creating text, we’re simulating biology,” he said in a statement.

Hotbed

France emerged as something of a hotbed for AI startupswith generative AI companies across the country securing a large portion of the funds last year. Mega funding rounds include $640 million in Mistral AI tranches, H secured $220 millionand Hugging the Face closing a $235 million investment – all in the last 18 months.

Bioptimus, for its part, was built only last year, but it already has raised a $35 million seed round. That it has now raised a grand total of $76 million, less than a year from its founding, is a testament not only to the current AI hype, but also the backgrounds of the six co-founders. said Bioptimus. Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Rodolphe Jenattonfor example, former senior research scientist at Amazon and Google. Vert, on the other hand, is not only the co-founder and CEO of Bioptimus, but he is also the chief R&D officer of OKa French unicorn and another The AI-infused biotech startup with backers including GV.

This dual role shows the origin of Bioptimus. Owkin uses AI and machine learning to accelerate drug discovery, and has established a series of partnerships with leading biopharmaceutical companies. As part of this work, Owkin also gathered a ton of multimodal patient data, which is what Bioptimus used to train its foundational model.

Instead of creating a tangential unit within Owkin focused on foundational models, it would be easier to create a separate entity.

“Building biology (foundational models) is not part of Owkin’s roadmap, but Owkin supports and wants to collaborate with a company like Bioptimus,” Vert explained to TechCrunch in an interview last year. “Training on a very large scale (foundation models) requires significant resources in terms of the amount of data, computing power and breadth of data modalities that can easily be opened as a specific entity. As a ‘pure player’ in foundational models, Bioptimus is better positioned to do so.

In the past months, the Bioptimus Cebu launched H-Optimus-0, an open source foundational model for pathology, trained on millions of images to help research and diagnose diseases, such as cancer. However, with a new $41 million in the bank, the company is set to strengthen its AI platform with a more diverse array of data sources covering a wider range of therapeutic areas. , while it will also look to establish more partnerships in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

As part of this, it is preparing to release a new multi-modal foundation model later this year, which covers the entire biological spectrum, one that can drive development in sectors including medical, biotech, and even cosmetic.

“Beyond pharmaceuticals, this model will open up unlimited possibilities in many other industries, driving biological discoveries in ways that are only beginning to be imagined,” said Vert.

Bioptimus’ latest cash injection was led by US venture capital firm Cathay Innovation, with participation from Sofinnova Partners, Bpifrance, Andera Partners, Hitachi Ventures, Boom Capital Ventures, Pomifer Capital, Sunrise, and several angel investors. .