Discover the top startups transforming drug discovery with AI-powered solutions that speed up research, improve accuracy and unlock new possibilities for personalized medicine and therapeutic design.
This article highlights technologies like AI-led computational drug discovery, bio-foundation models, and generative AI for therapeutic development.
Learn how these AI drug development companies advance longevity science, protein design, and molecular analysis. They also enhance biobank responses and structural biology research with intelligent, data-driven platforms.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights Emerging AI Drug Discovery Startups to Watch
Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering over 5M+ startups, 20K+ technology trends plus 150M+ patents, news articles & market reports, we identified 300+ AI-based drug discovery companies.
The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the 10 AI drug development companies you should watch in 2025 as well as the geo-distribution of 300+ startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research.
According to our data, we observe high startup activity in the United States and Western Europe, followed by India. The top 5 Startup Hubs for AI drug discovery are London, New York City, San Francisco, Cambridge, and Boston.
Meet Emerging AI Drug Discovery Startups to Watch in 2025
We hand-picked startups to showcase in this report by filtering for their technology, founding year, location, funding, and other metrics.
These drug discovery AI companies work on solutions ranging from computational discovery and bio-foundation models to therapeutic protein and molecule analysis.
- LinkGevity – Longevity Science-led Drug Discovery
- Examol – AI-led Computational Drug Discovery
- Helical – Bio-Foundation Models Platform
- DenovAI Biotech – Therapeutic Protein Design
- Orakl Oncology – AI-powered Techbio platform
- AVAYL – Medical Information-based Response Matching
- Aevai Health – Intelligent and Personalized Chatbot for Biobanks
- 9Bio Therapeutics – AI-guided Structural Biology Platform
- chAIron – AI-driven Molecules Analysis
- Aureka Biotechnologies – Generative AI-based Therapeutic Design
1. LinkGevity
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Solution: Tissue Damage Prevention
- Funding: Announced KQ Labs Programme Investment
LinkGevity creates Anti-Necrotics, a class of medications that prevent necrosis, a major factor in both acute wounds and chronic illnesses.
It prevents tissue damage in circumstances like acute renal injury, cardiovascular illnesses, and neurodegenerative disorders by targeting the molecular mechanisms that cause necrotic cell death.
Its constituents reduce necrosis to offer a viable substitute for organ transplantation or dialysis. LinkGevity’s method directly prevents cell death, increasing patient survival and quality of life, unlike traditional therapies that only treat symptoms.
The startup’s technology advances regenerative medicine by maintaining cellular function and slowing the progression of inflammation-driven diseases.
2. Examol
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
- Solution: Discovery of New Treatments
Examol develops a cloud-native AI-driven drug discovery platform that maximizes and expedites the discovery of new treatments. This technology enables researchers to execute virtual chemistry simulations by combining computational techniques with data infrastructure.
The platform improves drug candidate selection by enabling smooth machine-learning model execution without costly infrastructure configurations.
Examol’s AI-powered molecular modeling improves hit-to-lead optimization while reducing time and expenses associated with pharmaceutical research and development.
The platform enables scientists to enhance prediction accuracy and iterate more quickly through collaborative workflows and scalable computation.
Examol offers a potent solution for biotech companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and university researchers to create efficient treatments at a faster pace, improving accessibility to AI-driven drug discovery.
3. Helical
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Gare, Luxembourg
- Solution: DNA and mRNA Study
Helical creates an open-core bio foundation models platform that uses AI to study DNA and mRNA to find new drugs. The platform enables more accurate analysis of genetic sequences by providing researchers access to proprietary and open-source models.
It offers a marketplace for AI-powered biomedical applications, a data atlas, and model training tools. Helical speeds up mRNA sequence optimization, target identification, and biomarker discovery by incorporating AI-powered genome interpretation.
The startup utilizes AI-based molecular design tools and large biological information to improve drug development workflows.
It turns molecular biology into a data-driven field through automation and deep learning, improving the accuracy, scalability, and effectiveness of drug development.
Its platform benefits biotech and pharmaceutical companies to create next-generation RNA-based therapies and customized medicine.
4. DenovAI Biotech
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Rehovot, Israel
- Solution: Predict, Design, and Optimize Protein Structures
DenovAI Biotech offers an AI-driven de novo therapeutic protein design platform that builds protein binders and highly targeted antibodies from scratch.
The platform predicts, designs, and optimizes protein structures with high binding specificity by utilizing computational molecular biophysics and machine learning.
The startup’s method produces custom-engineered proteins more quickly compared to traditional protein discovery, which depends on screening enormous libraries. This discovery enables quicker biologics for infectious diseases, autoimmune conditions, and cancer.
DenovAI Biotech improves target selectivity, increases molecular stability and efficacy, and decreases trial-and-error in drug discovery by concentrating on rational protein design.
This technology advances biologic drug development by accelerating and improving the precision, and scalability of therapeutic innovation for pharmaceutical companies and biotech researchers.
5. Orakl Oncology
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Paris, France
- Solution: Development of Cancer Drugs
- Funding: Raised EUR 11 million
Orakl Oncology uses precision medicine to speed up the development of cancer drugs by collaborating with biotech and pharmaceutical companies. The startup focuses on AI-driven biomarker identification and therapeutic optimization to improve cancer patients’ treatment outcomes.
Its O-Predict forecasts patient responses to new drug candidates and predicts key clinical outcomes such as the number of responders and progression-free survival.
O-Validate generates biological evidence of causality, supporting target and biomarker validation and enabling data-based strategic decision-making across drug development stages.
Orakl Oncology improves the accurate identification of druggable targets and enhances patient stratification by combining genetic, proteomic, and real-world clinical data.
Its patented approach lowers the chance of late-stage clinical failures by predicting resistance pathways, optimizing drug combinations, and improving therapeutic efficacy evaluation.
Want to Explore 300+ AI Drug Discovery Startups & Scaleups?
6. AVAYL
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Berlin, Germany
- Solution: Medical Information Management
AVAYL develops MedPro, an AI-driven medical information management platform for life science companies. MedPro automates response matching, literature reviews, and the creation of medical content by combining AI with proprietary machine learning algorithms.
It ensures precise, high-quality, and compliant medical communication by processing large volumes of clinical trials and regulatory data. MedPro assists medical affairs teams in managing questions, delivering data-supported responses, and enhancing content accuracy by decreasing manual labor and streamlining workflows.
The platform benefits pharmaceutical, biotech, and healthcare companies due to its real-time analytics and automation features, which simplify regulatory submissions, compliance documentation, and medical research interpretation.
7. Aevai Health
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Solution: Data Collection for Biobanks
- Funding: Raised funding from Round One Ventures
Aevai Health offers Alva, an AI-powered chatbot to streamline participant engagement and data collection for biobanks and clinical research organizations.
Alva enhances the caliber and dependability of health data that is gathered by engaging in thoughtful, context-aware dialogues with study participants, patients, and donors.
The chatbot offers dynamic, real-time interaction as compared to conventional biobank data-gathering techniques that depend on static surveys and human follow-ups. This ensures that data is correct, up-to-date, and reflective of evolving patient conditions.
In addition, the chatbot has automated outcome tracking built in, which enables researchers to keep tabs on patient development and modify study procedures as necessary.
Aevai Health maximizes biobank efficiency, speeds up research results, and enables precision medicine discoveries by combining natural language processing, predictive analytics, and automated compliance tracking.
8. 9Bio Therapeutics
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Quebec City, Canada
- Solution: Differentiate Healthy Cells from Cancerous Ones
9Bio Therapeutics creates a structural biology platform guided by AI to create oncology treatments with higher accuracy and effectiveness. The platform ensures better targeted therapeutic treatments by using metabolomic profiling and protein structure analysis to differentiate healthy cells from cancerous ones.
The startup creates compounds with enhanced pharmacokinetics and less peripheral toxicity by concentrating on the biochemical and structural changes in diseased tissues.
Its in-house AI algorithms analyze large protein-ligand interaction databases, which enable the quick discovery of new binding sites and therapeutic targets.
9Bio Therapeutics maximizes therapeutic selectivity to enhance safety profiles while preserving efficacy without affecting healthy tissues.
This solution aids in the development of next-generation precision oncology medications by decreasing the possibility of off-target effects and increasing clinical success rates.
9. chAIron
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Lausanne, Switzerland
- Solution: Personalized Medicine and Drug Discovery
chAIron combines AI and human expertise to expand molecular knowledge and optimize therapeutic development for biopharmaceutical companies and research institutions.
The platform creates a thorough understanding of molecular structures and medication interactions by combining real-world data, omics insights, scientific literature, and market trends.
chAIron assists researchers in uncovering hidden relationships between molecules, illnesses, and possible treatment uses through the use of deep learning and sophisticated computational modeling.
It benefits pharmaceutical businesses to prioritize high-value assets, find new indications for current medications, and improve clinical trial tactics with this insight-driven method.
Further, the startup lowers the risks involved in early-stage medication development by offering predictive analytics to evaluate the safety and efficacy of drugs.
The platform speeds up innovation in personalized medicine and drug discovery by enhancing research and development decision-making. This ensures that promising treatments reach patients more quickly and effectively.
10. Aureka Biotechnologies
- Founding Year: 2023
- Location: Laguna Hills, California, United States
- Solution: Protein Engineering Procedures Improvement
Aureka Biotechnologies makes an AI-driven generative therapeutic design platform, integrating high-throughput autonomous evolution, functional screening, and deep learning to optimize biologic drug development.
The startup utilizes a self-learning molecular evolution method to rapidly examine millions of potential treatments.
It produces large volumes of biological data which combines AI-driven insights with automated experimental workflows to improve protein engineering procedures.
It enables researchers to quickly develop and improve therapeutic proteins due to its iterative learning cycle, which improves their stability, potency, and bioavailability.
Aureka Biotechnologies’ strategy reduces research timeframes by transforming therapeutic development into a data-driven engineering discipline, in contrast to traditional biologic discovery methods that rely on labor-intensive screening.
Its platform benefits pharmaceutical and biotech companies to create precision-engineered antibodies, protein-based therapies, and next-generation biologics.
Discover All Emerging Pharma Startups
This overview highlights just a few AI drug discovery solutions from 300+ new companies currently covered by the Discovery Platform. To explore them all, book a personalized demo or download our free Pharma Innovation Report for a quick overview.
