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Chai Discovery, an AI-driven biotech startup backed by OpenAI, has raised $130 million in a Series B funding round, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. The round was led by General Catalyst and Oak HC/FT, with participation from major investors including Menlo Ventures, OpenAI, Thrive Capital, and several new backers. With this latest raise, Chai’s total funding now exceeds $225 million, highlighting strong investor confidence in AI-powered drug discovery.
The company is part of a fast-growing movement that uses artificial intelligence to speed up and improve how new drugs are designed. Chai focuses on building large “foundation models” that can predict how biological molecules interact, allowing scientists to design potential medicines more efficiently. Its goal is to create a kind of computer-aided design platform for molecules, similar to how software transformed engineering and architecture.
Chai has already released two AI models, Chai 1 and the newer Chai 2. According to the company, Chai 2 shows major improvements in designing antibodies from scratch, rather than tweaking existing ones. This approach could open the door to treatments for disease targets that have so far been difficult or impossible to reach. CEO and co-founder Josh Meier, who previously worked at OpenAI and Facebook, says the models can now design molecules with properties expected of real drugs.
