Isomorphic Labs closed a $2.1 billion Series B, bringing total funding to about $2.6 billion. Thrive Capital again led the round, with Alphabet, GV, MGX, Temasek, CapitalG and a UK sovereign AI fund also in the mix.
The company matters because it is not a generic “AI for pharma” pitch. It was spun out of DeepMind in 2021, is led by Demis Hassabis, and carries the credibility of AlphaFold into a harder business: turning model output into drug candidates that survive clinical development.
Hassabis said the approach is now “fundamentally sound,” while president Max Jaderberg emphasized that the engine gives Isomorphic a repeatable way to design medicines. Repeatability is the scarce claim in AI drug discovery, where many teams can show a proof of concept but fewer can transfer it across targets and modalities.
The money will go into IsoDDE, global expansion and internal programs moving toward the clinic. Big pharma already has a reason to engage: Novartis, Lilly and Johnson & Johnson have signed multi-year collaborations, with earlier disclosed upfront and milestone potential running into the billions.
The real test is not the size of the round. It is the first internal molecule reaching IND, then Phase II, then positive data. If Isomorphic can show that before the end of this funding window, AI drug discovery gets a new valuation anchor; if not, sovereign and strategic investors will become tougher auditors.
Sources: Isomorphic Labs Blog, PR Newswire, Bloomberg, CocoLoop