When biology meets machine learning, the results can be beautiful, or terrifying, depending on who’s holding the code. Fortunately for the rest of us, Chai Discovery just closed a $70M Series A to keep humanity ahead of the molecular arms race. The San Francisco-based startup is putting biotech on a first-name basis with foundation models, and the funding’s just the beginning.
Menlo Ventures led the round, backed by their Anthology Fund (a joint collab with Anthropic, which is a whole other conversation about AI power players hedging both sides of the chessboard). They were joined by Yosemite, DST Global Partners, SV Angel, Avenir, DCVC, and returning heavyweights like Thrive Capital, OpenAI, Dimension, Lachy Groom, Neo, and Fred Ehrsam. No fluff, no crypto mirages, just real signal from serious people who understand what’s actually hard in AI.
At the center of it all is Joshua Meier, co-founder and CEO, with one of the most stacked resumes in next-gen biotech: OpenAI, Facebook AI Research, Absci. Not the kind of guy who needs a hype man, but if you’re building an AI platform that can reprogram molecular interactions on demand, you’re going to want someone who’s already lived at the edge of what’s possible. Alongside Meier, you’ve got co-founder and CTO Jack Dent bringing product rigor from Stripe, Matthew McPartlon applying deep science from VantAI and Absci, and Jacques Boitreaud layering in molecular modeling brilliance from Aqemia and McGill. No filler. No fluff. Just four founders who each could’ve led a startup, but decided to build one together.
And they’re not just talking in slides. Chai-1 matched AlphaFold3 on PoseBusters without the alignment crutches. Chai-2 took de novo antibody design from a multi-year, multi-million-dollar endeavor to a two-week sprint, and did it 200 times better than old-school wet labs. Not metaphorically. Literally.
Pfizer’s former Chief Scientist, Dr. Mikael Dolsten, just joined the board. That’s not a cameo. That’s 150 clinical molecules and 36 approved meds worth of validation. Chai Discovery isn’t looking to be a pharma company. They’re building the rails biotech will run on.
If you’re in therapeutics and you’re still relying on screening libraries and spreadsheets, Chai Discovery isn’t your competition; it’s your future partner. But don’t wait until your best scientists are secretly applying for access.
