AI Antibody Startup Antiverse Raises $9.3M

Antiverse was co-founded by CEO Murat Tunaboylu, a software engineer who moved from high-frequency trading to biotech after his father's cancer diagnosis, and CTO Ben Holland, an Oxford-trained engineer. They met at the Deep Science Ventures accelerator in London, bonding over the idea of using machine learning to solve complex biological problems. The term "undruggable" refers to disease-related proteins that can't be targeted by conventional drugs. This is often because the proteins lack stable, well-defined pockets for small-molecule drugs to bind to, a challenge that affects up to 85% of all human proteins. Antiverse's platform doesn't just screen existing antibodies; it designs new ones from scratch using AI. This is part of a "lab-in-the-loop" system where machine learning models design candidates, which are then immediately built and tested in the lab, a cycle that can produce therapeutic-grade antibodies in under four months. The collaboration with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation will target a notoriously difficult protein: the extracellular region of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). Antiverse's AI will design antibodies for this specific, challenging region, which will then be tested by the Foundation's labs in native cell models. This work is driven by roles like Computational Biologists and AI Drug Discovery Specialists. Professionals in these careers blend biology with coding (like Python or R) and data science to build predictive models, design molecules, and analyze massive biological datasets, bridging the gap between digital design and physical lab work. With total funding now over $20 million, Antiverse plans to scale its AI platform for partners and advance its own internal drug pipeline. The company aims to progress its first wholly-owned antibody candidates into later-stage preclinical development by 2027.