London-based deep tech Apoha has raised $36m (£26.7m) to build on its new data layer that reveals how matter, formulations and materials behave.
As the frontier of artificial intelligence moves beyond language and code into systems that act on the physical world, machines have not learned to feel matter. Examples could include perceiving how a drug responds to real-world conditions, or how a material functions in real-world conditions.
Apoha says it is creating that missing data layer for physical world AI, covering large-scale empirical data about how matter behaves and enabling more powerful reasoning, prediction and facilitating autonomous scientific discovery. The firm calls this layer liquid state intelligence.
The funding round was led by Singular, with participation from Draper Associates and continued backing from seed investors Redalpine, Seedcamp, Wilbe and Nucleus. Apoha also received grant funding from Innovate UK.
The new investment, which was announced at the Frontier Technologies Stage at SXSW London, will be used to build liquid state intelligence into the foundational data class of molecular behaviour, used across biologics, food, materials and the next generation of physical world AI.
“There is no shortcut to this data class – it cannot be scraped from the internet, synthesised or retrofitted from existing assays. It has to be measured,” says Shamit Shrivastava, CEO and co-founder at Apoha.
“Liquid state intelligence gives us the language of behaviour – what matter, molecules and materials actually do – and we are the company building it.”
