Simon Kohl, a former DeepMind research scientist and key contributor to AlphaFold, has unveiled Latent Labs, an AI-powered biotech startup aimed at transforming drug discovery. The company recently secured $40 million in Series A funding, led by Radical Ventures and Sofinnova Partners, with additional backing from AI leaders like Cohere founder Aidan Gomez, ElevenLabs founder Mati Staniszewski, and Google’s chief scientist Jeff Dean. With a mission to make biology programmable, Latent Labs is set to leverage cutting-edge artificial intelligence to design therapeutic molecules, including enzymes and antibodies, with greater precision and efficiency.
A Vision for AI-Driven Drug Discovery
Latent Labs, which was founded in 2023, is headquartered in both London and San Francisco. The company is currently operating with a team of around 15 experts, many of whom come from AI powerhouses such as DeepMind, Google, and Microsoft. The startup aims to bridge the gap between AI research and real-world applications in biotech, particularly in the field of protein design.
Kohl, who left DeepMind to focus on a more targeted approach to AI-driven drug discovery, believes that tackling protein design requires a deep and specialized focus. He has emphasized that generative AI models can now design new therapeutic molecules with unprecedented control, a development that could dramatically reduce failure rates in clinical trials and streamline the drug development process.
Funding and Expansion Plans
With its Series A funding secured, Latent Labs is now investing in scaling its AI models, acquiring high-performance computing resources, and expanding its teams in both the U.K. and U.S.. The startup is also looking to forge strategic partnerships with biotech firms, serving as an AI research partner to help companies accelerate drug discovery and protein engineering.
Kohl has described the company’s approach as a programmatic way to design biology, where AI-generated molecules can be customized for therapeutic applications rather than relying on trial-and-error experimentation. This method could revolutionize the industry, significantly reducing drug development timelines and making personalized medicine more accessible.
The DeepMind Connection and Scientific Breakthroughs
Kohl’s experience at DeepMind has played a crucial role in shaping his ambitions for Latent Labs. At DeepMind, he worked extensively on AlphaFold, an AI system that successfully predicted the structure of proteins, solving a challenge that had stumped scientists for decades. AlphaFold’s contributions to molecular biology were widely celebrated, and the research led to DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis and researcher John Jumper receiving a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Latent Labs builds on this legacy, pushing AI’s capabilities further into drug discovery and molecule design. By leveraging advanced generative AI, the company aims to create more effective biological treatments, paving the way for breakthrough therapies in fields such as cancer treatment, genetic disorders, and autoimmune diseases.
Shaping the Future of AI in Biotech
Latent Labs represents a significant step in the evolution of AI-powered drug discovery, offering new ways to create and refine therapeutic proteins and antibodies. Kohl envisions a future where AI can help design entire molecular pathways, allowing for a new era of precision medicine.
As the company ramps up its operations, it will continue to collaborate with leading biotech firms, academic institutions, and pharmaceutical companies to refine its AI models and integrate them into real-world drug development pipelines.
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