Basecamp Research, a London-based biotechnology company developing AI-designed medicines, has raised an oversubscribed $140 million Series C financing led by S32, with participation from NVIDIA, Anthropic’s Anthology Fund, Catalio Capital Management, NATO Innovation Fund, The Rockefeller Foundation, True Ventures, and other investors. The funding will support the development of a new generation of the company’s EDEN biological foundation models and advance its pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics toward clinical development, beginning with in vivo cell therapy.
The round also included European Tech Collective, Firebrand River Capital, Inception Fund, King Philanthropies, PostScriptum, Redalpine, Singular, and Sovereign AI. Senior executives from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries participated, including André Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of Roche.
Basecamp Research is developing a platform that combines AI models trained on proprietary biological data with technologies capable of introducing complex DNA sequences into living cells. Its goal is to develop medicines that reprogram a patient’s cells to perform therapeutic functions, potentially creating new treatment approaches for diseases that remain difficult to address with existing medicines.
The company’s initial therapeutic focus is in vivo cell therapy, which involves modifying cells directly inside the patient’s body rather than extracting and engineering them outside the body. Conventional cell therapies can involve complicated manufacturing procedures and costs reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.
Basecamp aims to address these limitations by combining its EDEN models with large serine recombinases, enzymes capable of precisely integrating DNA sequences into the genome.
EDEN is designed to generate long and complex DNA sequences that can perform specific biological functions. Combined with the company’s DNA integration technology, the platform could enable more sophisticated and customizable therapeutic designs for applications involving cancer, autoimmune diseases, and other serious conditions.
Basecamp has reported encouraging preclinical results across multiple therapeutic modalities and disease areas. Its pipeline is advancing toward clinical development, although the treatments remain investigational.
The company’s AI capabilities are supported by its Trillion Gene Atlas, a proprietary biological training dataset developed with partners including NVIDIA, Anthropic, PacBio, and Ultima Genomics.
The dataset incorporates biological information collected through access and benefit-sharing partnerships spanning more than 30 countries across all seven continents. The company uses this information to train EDEN models to recognize patterns across biological systems that have historically received limited scientific attention.
Unlike AI models designed for individual research tasks, EDEN is intended to develop a broader understanding of DNA and its functions across different forms of life.
Basecamp has also demonstrated the ability to generate potential therapeutic candidates directly from information about a disease through its collaboration with Anthropic on Claude Science. The platform’s broader capabilities extend to designing cell and gene therapies, enzymes, and peptides.
Alongside the financing, the company has strengthened its leadership and board. Andy Conrad, General Partner at S32 and former CEO of Verily, has joined its Board of Directors.
Basecamp has also appointed Richard Pearce, formerly of Biogen, as Chief Business Officer to expand its pharmaceutical partnerships.
The funding will enable the company to advance its therapeutic pipeline, strengthen its AI models, and expand collaborations with pharmaceutical companies as it works to translate its technology into medicines.
KEY QUOTES:
“We believe the future of medicine lies in reprogramming the body to repair itself. We design the models and the medicines to teach it how. AI-based approaches promise to change what’s possible for patients who currently have few alternatives. This funding brings this technology closer to those who need it most.”
Glen Gowers, Co-Founder and CEO of Basecamp Research
“The biotechnology revolution that began fifty years ago transformed how we make medicines. Personalised, AI-designed therapeutics represent the next transformation of that journey. Basecamp Research has built the full platform to deliver it, from biological data to trained models to designed therapies. This will be key in helping the industry to continue to innovate.”
André Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of Roche
“AI is opening up new possibilities across every part of society, but perhaps nowhere is the potential more meaningful than in human health. The ability to combine AI, biological data and scientific insight could transform how we understand disease, discover medicines and ultimately improve and extend people’s lives. Basecamp Research is building an important technology platform at the center of that opportunity.”
Andy Conrad, General Partner at S32 and Board Member of Basecamp Research
