UK-based biotech Antiverse, developing AI-designed therapeutic antibodies for undruggable disease targets, closed a $9.3 million Series A round led by Soulmates Ventures to scale its AI-driven antibody discovery platform and advance proprietary antibody programmes toward in vivo efficacy studies, as Vestbee was informed.
- Launched in 2017 by founders Murat Tunaboylu and Ben Holland. Antiverse develops therapeutic antibodies for so-called “undruggable” disease targets, particularly complex membrane proteins such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels, which are involved in cancer, neurological disorders and rare diseases.
- Antiverse combines machine learning with in-house laboratory testing to design and validate antibodies. Instead of screening vast natural antibody libraries, its AI models generate target-specific antibody sequences predicted to bind to a defined protein region.
- These designs are then built and tested in the company’s laboratories using engineered cell lines that express the target protein in a form that mimics human biology. Data from lab testing feeds back into the computational models in a “lab-in-the-loop” process, allowing iterative refinement.
Details of the deal
- The round was led by Soulmates Ventures, with participation from Innovation Investment Capital, DOMiNO Ventures, and existing investors DBW, Kadmos Capital, and i&i Biotech Fund.
"The team’s ability to reduce the development time for de novo therapeutic-grade antibodies in a defined domain to under four months is a significant scientific and operational achievement. This capability, combined with the AI-driven design and in-house labs, positions Antiverse on track to become a global leader and the go-to developer of antibody therapies for the most elusive disease targets in medicine," explains Michal Sikyta, Managing Partner at Soulmates Ventures.
- Antiverse will use the Series A funding to expand and scale its AI-powered antibody discovery platform for pharmaceutical and foundation partners, while also accelerating the growth of its internal drug pipeline. The capital will support advancing its lead antibody programmes toward in vivo efficacy studies and further strengthen its lab-in-the-loop capabilities to speed up the development of therapeutic-grade antibodies for challenging disease targets.
