BenchSci Raises $22M in Series B Funding

BenchSci, a Toronto, Canada-based provider of a machine learning platform to identify and resolve preclinical research inefficiencies in drug discovery, raised $22m in Series B financing.

The round was led by F-Prime Capital, with participation from Northleaf Capital Partners and existing investors Gradient Ventures, Inovia Capital, Golden Ventures, and Real Ventures. As part of the deal, Shervin Ghaemmaghami, Senior Vice President of F-Prime, will join the board of directors.

The company will use the funds to further develop its suite of products.

Led by Liran Belenzon, CEO and co-founder, BenchSci leverages machine learning to target inefficiencies and unnecessary spend in preclinical research by evaluating published experiments to identify which reagents will work for which experiments. The company’s first product, AI-Assisted Antibody Selection, focused only on antibodies. Now, BenchSci has launched its new AI-Assisted Reagent Selection product, which expands to other important reagents, including recombinant proteins, RNAi, CRISPR, cell lines, and more.

Since commercializing its AI-Assisted Antibody Selection product 18 months ago, the company has helped decrease costs and accelerate research in 15 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and more than 3,600 academic labs.

The company has also expanded its contract with Novartis. As one of the earliest pharmaceutical companies to benefit from AI-Assisted Antibody Selection, Novartis will also be the first BenchSci customer to deploy the new AI-Assisted Reagent Selection product.

Source. FinSMEs, February 4, 2020

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