Aureka Raises $100M Series B to Scale AI-Driven Drug Discovery Platform

Laguna Hills, Calif.-based Aureka Biotechnologies has successfully raised $100 million in Series B financing, bringing its total funding to nearly $200 million. This latest round, led by Singapore’s Granite Asia alongside a strategic investor, includes participation from China’s HighLight Capital and follow-on investments from existing shareholders MPCi and NRL Capital. The new capital will enable Aureka to expand its model training and laboratory validation capabilities.

Founded in 2023, Aureka specializes in developing biological models for various stages of drug discovery, such as molecular design, protein structure modeling, and biological function prediction. Their AuraIDE model utilizes proprietary protein co-evolution data and can be tailored to specific drug programs through additional training focused on particular biological targets and development goals.

“When leading biological foundation models are genuinely combined with R&D infrastructure that can run at scale, we are no longer simply making one step of drug discovery more efficient — we are building the next-generation drug discovery engine, one that can understand, generate and predict biological systems,” stated Dr. Weian Zhao, founder and CEO of Aureka Biotechnologies.

Dr. Zhao, a bioengineer and postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, has an extensive background in academia and industry, including tenured professorship at the University of California, Irvine. He has also co-founded several biotechnology ventures such as Amberstone Biosciences, Velox Biosystems, and Baylx Inc., focusing on areas like clinical diagnostics and stem cell therapies.

Aureka’s Lab-in-the-Loop system integrates molecular generation and computational assessment with single-cell functional screening and high-throughput experiments. This system creates a feedback loop where models generate molecular candidates or hypotheses, experiments evaluate their biological activity, and the resulting data refines the models to better suit individual needs.

In addition to its innovative technology, Aureka is pursuing commercial applications rather than relying solely on software licensing. The company claims to have developed unique antibodies targeting challenging areas, including G-protein-coupled receptors and dual-target antibodies that engage two biological targets with a single molecule.

Granite Asia, the Singapore-based investment firm managing around $10 billion in assets, has a strong track record, having invested in 127 companies valued over $1 billion and supporting 67 IPOs globally. “AI-driven drug discovery is moving beyond competition on isolated model capability and into a new phase defined by the co-evolution of data, models and experiments in a closed loop,” remarked Yinghui Kuang, partner at Granite Asia.

In July, Granite Asia also participated in Series E financing for global travel-booking platform Omio and a Series B round for AI-powered 3D design company Meshy, as well as co-investing with Tencent and Shunwei Capital in a Series B round for image-generation platform LiblibAI. Earlier this year, the firm led a $45 million financing round for ChemLex, an AI-driven chemical discovery company headquartered in Singapore.