Converge Bio, an AI platform focused on accelerating drug discovery and development, announced it has raised $25 million in Series A funding, bringing total capital raised to $30 million. The highly oversubscribed round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from TLV Partners, Vintage Investment Partners, and Saras Capital, along with individual executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Wiz.
Converge said the financing comes roughly 18 months after founding and follows what it described as strong commercial traction and scientific results. The company said more than a dozen biopharma customers are using its platform across target discovery, antibody design, and protein manufacturing optimization.
In announcing the round, Converge framed its strategy around moving beyond standalone models to integrated “AI systems” that can be used directly by working biologists. CEO and co-founder Dov Gertz said the company is building end-to-end capabilities that combine multiple proprietary models into a system designed to plug into existing drug development workflows. Converge said the goal is to deliver practical outputs—such as novel drug targets, optimized antibody candidates, and protein sequences engineered for higher yield—without requiring users to write code or build new infrastructure.
Converge said its models are experimentally validated and trained using large-scale datasets assembled from high-throughput screening, data acquired at scale, and curated public datasets. Customers can also use their own proprietary data to create private, fine-tuned instances of Converge’s models while retaining full ownership, the company said.
The platform is already being applied across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurodegenerative diseases and autoimmune conditions, according to Converge. Over the past year, the company said it completed more than 40 programs with pharmaceutical and biotech partners. Converge said those programs have contributed to the discovery of novel antibodies with single-digit nanomolar binding affinities, improved protein manufacturing yields by roughly four- to seven-fold, and identified molecular biomarkers intended to help optimize patient response.
Bessemer partner Andrew Hedin said Converge has distinguished itself with paying customers and validated results, arguing the company is positioned to become a widely adopted generative AI layer for life sciences teams looking to operationalize AI in day-to-day R&D and development work.
Converge said it plans to use the new capital to scale its platform and broaden access to its AI systems across biopharma organizations, with the stated aim of making it easier for teams to identify where AI can create measurable impact and then deploy validated tools quickly.
Founded in 2024, Converge said it has a 40-person team spanning machine learning, computational biology and drug development, with roughly half of employees holding advanced degrees in related fields. Gertz previously developed a machine-learning method for discovering novel CRISPR systems that led to a U.S.-licensed patent and a scientific publication in collaboration with Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, the company said. Chief Scientific Officer Iddo Weiner holds a PhD in bioinformatics and biomedical engineering and has led two drug programs through positive Phase 2 clinical readouts, according to Converge. CTO Oded Kalev previously led cybersecurity AI teams and has advised U.S. government agencies on large-scale generative AI applications, the company said.
KEY QUOTES:
“The conversation needs to shift from models to AI systems. Unlike ChatGPT, you can’t simply prompt a model and get useful results. There’s a long road from a model that performs well on benchmarks to an AI system a biologist can actually use.” “The AI drug discovery revolution is here. Our goal is simple: make every biotech and pharma company an AI company. We make it easy for scientists to identify where AI can deliver real results for them today, and provide them with our validated tools to get there.”
Dov Gertz, CEO and Co-Founder, Converge Bio
“Converge has something rare in this space: real commercial traction and strong scientific results. The team has built validated solutions that are already delivering results for paying customers. As one of the most results-driven players in the field, we believe Converge is well positioned to be the de facto generative AI lab for the life sciences industry.”
Andrew Hedin, Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners
