Less than two months after closing a $100m series C round, the Dundee spinout has raised $225m in a series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Exscientia, a UK-based drug discovery technology spinout of University of Dundee, secured $225m in series D financing yesterday led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, a vehicle for telecoms conglomerate SoftBank.
Pharmaceutical firms Novo and Bristol Myers Squibb also took part in the round, as did funds managed by BlackRock, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Pivotal BioVenture Partners, Laurion Capital, Hongkou and Abu Dhabi state-owned Mubadala Investment Company.
SoftBank has committed an additional $300m in equity that can be drawn at Exscientia’s discretion.
Founded in 2012, Exscientia has built an artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform to handle the entire drug discovery process from target identification through drug design and patient selection. It currently has two assets in the clinic and more than 20 candidates in its pipeline.
The series D capital will allow the spinout to progress its pipeline and further expand its platform.
Andrew Hopkins, chief executive of Exscientia, said: “All of our investors share Exscientia’s vision to discover better drugs, faster, through AI and automation. Our patient-first AI platform has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to precision design drugs that address patients’ needs.
“With the series D completed, the quality and depth of our shareholder base allows us the freedom to continue to scale both our platform and pipeline.”
The spinout completed a $100m series C round in early March 2021 following a $40m extension from funds managed by BlackRock. The initial $60m tranche was led by Novo in May 2020, with participation from Bristol Myers Squibb, drug discovery firm Evotec and unnamed limited partners of GT Healthcare.
GT Healthcare, Evotec and pharmaceutical firm Celgene (now a subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb) participated in a $26m series B round in 2019.
Evotec had supplied $17.7m in funding in 2017. Commercialisation firm Frontier IP holds a minority stake in the spinout, having helped establish Exscientia.
