AI biotech research platform Causaly secures £45.8m

London-headquartered AI biotech research platform Causaly has secured $60m (£45.8m) in a Series B funding round.

Founded in 2018, Causaly has developed a drug discovery platform that uses AI to expedite the complex process of pharmaceutical development. The firm has said its research platform is in deployment at 12 of the top 20 pharma companies.

Researchers are using the company’s AI software for tasks such as biomarker discovery and target identification to find, process and apply research information.

Yiannis Kiachopoulos, co-founder and CEO of Causaly, said: “Knowledge is the lifeblood of research organizations, and we are committed to our mission to make it discoverable, working with our customers to make sense of their scientific data and apply insights to enable evidence-driven decisions.”

The Series B round, led by ICONIQ Growth, means to date the startup has raised a total of £71m. The company previously raised £12m in a funding round back in May 2021.

Index Ventures, Marathon Venture Capital, EBRD, Pentech Ventures, Visionaries Club and angels including ex-chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Alex Gorsky, also participated in the round.

Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas, a partner at Index Ventures, said: “Causaly gives scientists the power to solve the world’s biggest challenges like never before. It is one of the clearest real-life applications of AI today.

“Already rolled out by some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Causaly is actively accelerating biomedical research now.”