Biotech startup Phenomic AI secured $6M in funding from CTI Life Sciences Fund

Phenomic AI, a Toronto based biotech startup using the Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning to reveal drug targets, has now secured $6 million in seed funding.

Phenomic AI is founded by Sam Cooper. It is a drug discovery company for fibrosis and cancer. The company’s platform incorporates advanced AI/ML tools to enable the screening of complex interactions at scale in multi-cell systems to discover novel drug targets to be advanced internally. The company has its office in Boston.

Sam Cooper, CEO of Phenomic AI, said, "Building on our foundational machine-learning tools, we can now process and extract information from the interactions between different cell types at the scale and speed necessary to power drug discovery. We’ve rapidly identified novel targets in the tumor stroma and have confirmed that they are heavily upregulated in specific solid tumors. With the support of our new and current investors and the addition of Mike, who brings deep drug discovery expertise, we are launching the company with significant momentum to advance novel antibodies into preclinical studies that could improve the effectiveness of cancer treatment."

Dr. Briskin, CSO of Phenomic AI, said, "Cancer and fibrotic diseases are driven by the dysregulation of local cellular environments, where multiple cell types are engaged in complicated, uncontrolled interactions, and teasing apart each cell type’s contribution has previously been a tremendous challenge. By combining insights from Phenomic’s proprietary platform, along with additional technologies based on primary human cell data, we anticipate that we will be able to quickly build out a meaningful pipeline of new antibody drugs targeting the tumor stroma and other diseases driven by multi-cellular pathologies. Furthermore, having the expertise from Jim and Pam, who are translational researchers at the frontline of immuno-oncology drug development, will provide tremendous insights into the biology and clinical strategies for our targets of interest."

The round was backed by the CTI Life Sciences Fund with participation from Luminous Ventures, AV8 Ventures, and Viva BioInnovator.

Existing investors, the Hike Ventures, Garage Capital, and Cantos Ventures, also joined the funding round.

The company intends to leverage the latest funding to support preclinical studies for two validated cancer drug targets discovered with the company’s platform as well as discover and advance drug targets into the company’s pipeline, notes the announcement.