A Boulder company that uses artificial intelligence to learn about naturally occurring molecules and create new medicines has attracted millions of dollars more from investors.
Enveda Biosciences closed a $55 million Series B2 financing round June 14 with participation from new investors such as Microsoft and The Nature Conservancy, the company said in a news release.
The company says it plans to use the funding to enhance the drug-development platform it created that logs and analyzes molecules found in living things.
The database of natural chemicals, which Enveda calls the "library of life," has laid the groundwork for treatments set to enter clinical trials later this year, the company said.
The new financing round brings Enveda's total to $230 million, the company said.
This round brought four new investors: Premji Invest, Lingotto Investment Fund, Microsoft and The Nature Conservancy. Existing investors who also participated in this round were Kinnevik, True Ventures, FPV, Level Ventures, and Jazz Venture Partners, the companies said.
Founded in 2019, Enveda is tackling development of medicines to treat conditions like inflammatory bowel disease by learning from the natural molecules in its dataset, Enveda says.
“The investors who joined in this round recognize our rapid progress, as well as our expansive potential and vision,” said Viswa Colluru, CEO and founder of Enveda, in a statement. “In combination with our deep bench of top-tier investors, we are in an ideal position to advance our novel medicines into the clinic and to bring hope to waiting patients.”
Colluru told the Denver Business Journal in 2021 that he founded the company out of a desire to tap into plant-based medicine from his home country in India while also addressing a fundamental problem in drug discovery: what works in a lab often doesn’t work for people.
