While companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are making strides in enabling users to interact with artificial intelligence using everyday language, a London startup named Basecamp Research has raised $60 million to explore a new frontier. The company is developing an AI agent that not only answers questions about biology and environmental biodiversity but also generates novel insights beyond human capabilities.
“There is a significant data gap in the field of biology,” stated Glen Gowers, co-founder and CEO of Basecamp Research, in an interview. “Top pharma companies are developing models that lack sufficient exposure to the natural world.”
The funding reflects the growing momentum of Basecamp Research. To date, Gowers reported that the startup has formed over 100 partnerships with organizations across 25 countries to enrich its database with primary-source information. Approximately 15 of these partners are leveraging its AI to create innovative products. For instance, Procter & Gamble is using the models to engineer enzymes for more efficient cold-water stain removal in detergents, while Colorifix is developing eco-friendlier fabric dye formulations.
Basecamp Research claims that its foundational model, BaseFold, surpasses AlphaFold 2 — the latter recently honored with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry — in its ability to accurately predict complex protein structures and small molecule interactions.
What sets Basecamp Research apart is its ambitious approach: developing its models entirely from scratch. Gowers and co-founder Oliver Vince, both PhDs in biology, first met as undergraduates at Oxford University. The name "Basecamp Research" is inspired by their time living on an ice cap, where Vince recalls doing DNA sequencing with self-constructed hardware. “We pioneered the first mobile DNA sequencing laboratory,” he mentioned.
Basecamp Research has repurposed parts of this hardware into compact units designed to gather data for their new startup. Despite the vast literature and petabytes of data generated in the biological field over the decades, much of it remains outdated or inconsistent. Therefore, Basecamp Research is focused on collecting new, high-quality primary data to inform its models, aiming to create an AI with insights that outperform human analysis due to its access to a broader data set.
“We combine global exploration to collect data on phenomena like hot springs and volcanoes with advanced AI focused on training large language models,” Gowers explained. The startup has also assembled what Vince describes as potentially the largest compute cluster dedicated to the natural world.
Just as ChatGPT excels at processing and articulating natural language responses, Basecamp Research aims for its AI to do the same with biological data. However, Vince emphasizes that only about 1% of the world's biodiversity data has been captured, limiting our ability to ask the right questions. As Andy Conrad, a backer from S32 and former CEO of Verily Life Sciences at Google, puts it, Basecamp Research’s platform is poised to answer questions that the biopharma industry doesn’t yet know to ask.
“Our platform doesn’t just parse text or speech; it grasps the language of DNA and biology, allowing it to surpass human capabilities in biological design,” Gowers continued. “Humans often struggle with DNA comprehension, but our language models, with sufficient data, can excel tremendously.”
The Series B funding, led by European firm Singular, comes alongside an exciting “multi-year collaboration” with Dr. David R. Liu at the Broad Institute, a prominent biomedical research center affiliated with MIT and Harvard. The goal is to utilize the funding to forge new partnerships and gather more data to expand their models beyond basic biological queries.
Basecamp Research also envisions aiding organizations involved in drug discovery and other significant challenges related to the natural world. Their collaboration with the Broad Institute indicates potential paths for such initiatives, as Dr. Liu's labs investigate “novel fusion proteins and other complex molecules” for genetic medicine, utilizing datasets from Basecamp Research in their development.
While commercial deals are underway, it appears Basecamp Research is not prioritizing a public-facing “ChatGPT”-style interface. Instead, Gowers indicated that the company sees greater value in B2B solutions. However, he acknowledged that engaging the public could be part of their future roadmap.
This strategy appears aligned with other startups developing expansive scientific models; for example, Jua focuses on physics insights for organizations studying weather patterns.
Basecamp Research has not disclosed its current valuation, although this latest Series B funding rounds out their total raised to $85 million. Previous investors include Hummingbird, True Ventures, and Valo, while PitchBook estimated their valuation at $71 million in 2022.
The Series B round also attracted investment from notable figures like André Hoffmann, vice-chairman of Roche; Feike Sijbesma, chair of Royal Philips and former CEO of DSM; and Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever.
This significant fundraising effort underscores the transformative potential of AI in understanding the complexities of biology and biodiversity.
Keywords: AI, Basecamp Research, Biotechnology, Biodiversity, Fundraising
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