Using AI to develop healthcare and energy products, BenevolentAI received $115 million in financing

At the moment, almost all companies want to take advantage of the heat of artificial intelligence technology. And there are a number of companies that not only want to be hot, but also want to really use this technology to create the best and smartest applications. Recently, there is a start-up companies from London raised a lot of money, hoping to take advantage of AI techniques to seek solutions to the healthcare, energy and other areas of persistent problems. The company, called BenevolventAI, announced today that it has completed $115 million in financing. It is reported that this fund will be used to develop its core project "AI brain" and other technologies. At present, the company has made major breakthroughs in the field of drug development.

According to Ken Mulvaney, founder and CEO of BenevolventAI, this round of financing has raised the company's market value to $2.1 billion. The original investor, Woodford Investment Management, participated in the financing. Regarding the information of other investors, the company only mentioned some family businesses and strategic investors from the United States. Others did not elaborate. It is worth noting that many Benevolent AI investors are not traditional venture capital institutions that are very concerned about AI ventures. BenevolentAI was founded in 2013 and has so far raised more than $200 million in financing.

The core business of BenevolentAI is the “AI brain” created by a group of scientists. Mulvaney said that the company currently has 155 employees and it is expected that this number will increase to 300 by the end of this year. The main purpose of creating this “AI Brain” is to collect and calculate massive amounts of data in specific areas (such as health and materials science) to help scientists find solutions that can solve problems in medicine and other fields.

For example, in the field of drug development, the crux of the problem is that even if scientists can identify the arrangement and strain of a certain cancer, each strain may be mutated, and this variation will also be due to the individual patient. The difference is different.

An AI with powerful computing and learning skills can help solve this problem. Of course, BenevolventAI is not the only startup that uses AI to solve such problems, especially in dealing with cancer. Grail and Paige.AI have also achieved certain results.

But despite the rapid development of AI, it still takes a long time to truly achieve the goal of BenevolentAI. According to Mulvaney, BenevolentAI has a drug development-focused division called Benevolent Bio, which has two drugs that have entered a more advanced stage of development – ​​but neither of these drugs are developed for cancer. There is also a drug for Parkinson's disease that has entered Phase 2B clinical trials after years of hard work.

The development of drugs takes a long time, partly due to the complexity of the drug regulatory framework. Mulvaney said: "But actually this complicated approval process is beneficial because it means we are qualified to provide our products to the market."

Due to the lengthy drug development cycle, the company also seized the opportunity to step up research on adjacent areas, such as materials science. According to Mulvaney, Benevolent hopes to produce a material that is resistant to high heat so that the engine can work efficiently without worrying about the risk of heat. In addition, the company is also developing new Chemical Products, hoping to produce batteries with smaller size and longer life.

In the future, the company also plans to enter other industries that are closely related to AI technology, such as agriculture and veterinary science.