Led by Inovia Capital and TCV, funding brings total investment to $123 million and will expedite expansion of machine learning technology used in 16 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies
Toronto, CANADA - BenchSci, a global leader in machine learning applications for novel medicine development, today announced a $63 million Series C (US $50 Million) funding round led by Inovia Capital and TCV, with participation from existing investors.
Bringing total investment to $123 million (US $97 million), the funding allows BenchSci to expedite the expansion of its transformative AI-powered software platform that accelerates research in 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide.
Leveraging over 100 proprietary machine learning models, BenchSci's platform empowers 49,000 scientists globally to optimize their experiment designs and hence research productivity. Building on the success of applications that help scientists select reagents and model systems, BenchSci is evolving its technology to provide a comprehensive platform with capabilities that help leading pharmaceutical companies to solve their biggest R&D challenges.
“This funding demonstrates trust in our ability to build and deliver a next-generation AI solution that helps global pharmaceutical companies develop novel medicines faster, ” says Liran Belenzon, CEO, BenchSci. “We're using breakthrough machine learning technology to shape the future of how life science companies conduct research, from identifying targets, to planning experiments, to determining clinical trial risks. The confidence demonstrated by global pharmaceutical companies who are early adopters of our new solutions was enough to convince Inovia Capital to fund another round and prompt TCV to back our meteoric hypergrowth. ”
In previous funding rounds, BenchSci raised $60 million (US $47 million) from tier one investors including F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), and Inovia Capital. In 2021, BenchSci doubled its team and industry user base and is poised to double again in 2022.
‘’We strongly believe that the preclinical R&D market remains largely untapped, and that BenchSci can become a category-defining leader to bring life-saving drugs to market faster,’’ says Dennis Kavelman, Partner at Inovia. ‘’Doubling down on a company that we believe in is part of our commitment to being a long-term partner to build global sustainable tech companies.’’
BenchSci’s proprietary machine learning models—trained to understand experiments like a Ph.D. scientist—extract critical insights from published scientific data sources and pharmaceutical organizations' internal databases. The models understand the biomedical significance of extracted data and establish relationships between biological entities. This technology is the foundation of all of BenchSci’s applications, which surface the appropriate information and insights to assist scientists at top global pharmaceutical companies in various stages of R&D.
“The preclinical research market is in dire need of software to drive efficiencies in the discovery through development process,” says Matt Brennan, General Partner at TCV. “BenchSci is well-positioned to be the category-defining technology platform for the industry, and we look forward to working with Liran and his team to transform this industry.”
Founded in 2015, BenchSci has rapidly grown its customer base since launching commercially in 2017. As a Deloitte Tech Fast 50 company, it is one of the fastest-growing companies in the country.
For more BenchSci updates, visit our news page.
About Inovia
Inovia Capital is a venture firm that partners up with audacious founders ready to build enduring global technology companies. We are known to roll up our sleeves and serve founders with dedicated, long-term mentorship, a global talent network and strategic support for global scale. Inovia Capital manages over US$1.9B across early and growth-stage funds and holds offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, San Francisco and London.
About TCV
Founded in 1995, TCV was established with a clear vision: to capture opportunities in the technology market through a specialized and consistent focus on investing in high-growth companies. Since inception, the firm has built a track record of successfully backing public and private businesses that have developed into dominant industry players across internet, software, FinTech, and enterprise IT. TCV has invested over $16 billion to date and has helped guide CEOs through more than 145 IPOs and strategic acquisitions. TCV has invested in cutting edge technology companies including Airbnb, Believe, Brex, Dream Sports, FarEye, Mollie, Nubank, Razorpay, RELEX Solutions, Revolut, RMS, Sportradar, Spotify, Trade Republic, The Pracuj Group, and Zepz. TCV has successfully executed over 350 investments of varying structures, including mid-stage, late stage, and public company investments, and has offices in Menlo Park, New York, and London. For more information about TCV, including a complete list of TCV investments, visit https://www.tcv.com/.
For more information, please contact Marie Cook at mcook@benchsci.com.
