Isomorphic Labs raises $2.1 billion

Isomorphic Labs said on May 12 that it had raised $2.1 billion in Series B financing, giving one of the best-funded artificial-intelligence drug discovery companies a larger balance sheet as it pushes from model-building into drug development. The London-based company said Thrive Capital led the round, with existing backers Alphabet and GV joining new investors MGX, Temasek, CapitalG and the UK Sovereign AI Fund. The company said the money will be used to scale its AI drug-design engine, expand globally and advance its drug candidate pipeline. The financing adds to a $600 million external funding round announced on March 31, 2025, according to Isomorphic Labs’ news page. That implies roughly $2.6 billion in outside capital raised to date. Isomorphic Labs was founded in 2021 inside Alphabet and has built its pitch around using artificial intelligence to shorten parts of drug discovery that have traditionally taken years. (isomorphiclabs.com) ### Why is this round getting attention beyond the size of the check? Thrive Capital’s role matters because the firm has become one of the most closely watched investors in large AI financings, and this round places Isomorphic Labs in a small group of biotech-adjacent companies able to raise multibillion-dollar sums on a platform story. Isomorphic Labs said the new syndicate also broadens its “global capital base,” a sign that sovereign and strategic investors are willing to back long-duration AI drug discovery programs. (isomorphiclabs.com) MGX, Temasek and the UK Sovereign AI Fund give the round a cross-border investor mix that goes beyond a typical biotech venture syndicate. The company did not disclose valuation terms in its announcement. ### What exactly is Isomorphic Labs building? Isomorphic Labs says its core product is the Isomorphic Labs Drug Design Engine, or IsoDDE, a computational system for predicting molecular structures and designing drug candidates. (isomorphiclabs.com) In a February technical post, the company said the platform goes “beyond AlphaFold 3” by adding capabilities intended to bridge structure prediction and practical drug discovery. AlphaFold 3 is central to that story. Isomorphic Labs and Google DeepMind said in a May 2024 paper and accompanying post that AlphaFold 3 predicts the structure and interactions of proteins, DNA, RNA, ligands and other biomolecules, with at least a 50% improvement over existing methods for protein interactions with other molecule types and doubled accuracy in some important categories. (isomorphiclabs.com) ### Where do Eli Lilly and other pharma partners fit in? Eli Lilly and Novartis were Isomorphic Labs’ first large pharmaceutical partners, announced in January 2024. At the time, Isomorphic Labs said the Lilly and Novartis collaborations together had the potential to be worth nearly $3 billion, excluding royalties from any future drug sales. (isomorphiclabs.com) The Eli Lilly collaboration is focused on discovering small-molecule therapeutics against undisclosed targets, according to Isomorphic Labs’ partnerships page. The company’s public materials say AlphaFold 3 and related models are already being used in internal programs and in partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, though the company has not publicly detailed target-by-target results from Lilly. (isomorphiclabs.com) ### What should readers watch next? Isomorphic Labs said the new capital will fund global expansion and progress its drug candidate pipeline, so the next concrete markers are likely to be additional partnership disclosures, pipeline updates or movement of internally designed candidates toward clinical testing. The company’s news page shows it has continued to add partnerships and technical updates since 2025, including a Novartis collaboration expansion in February 2025. (isomorphiclabs.com) The company has not yet announced a public timeline for a first clinical trial in the materials reviewed here. For now, the clearest next step is execution: turning a larger investor syndicate, AlphaFold-derived tools and existing pharma deals into named drug programs that can be tracked externally. (isomorphiclabs.com)