Excelsior Sciences has secured $95 million in new financing to expand its automated chemistry platform and accelerate the development and manufacturing of small molecules in the United States. The newly announced capital includes a $70 million Series A co-led by Deerfield Management, Khosla Ventures, and Sofinnova Partners, as well as a $25 million grant from New York’s Empire State Development. Additional participants include Cornucopian Capital, Eli Lilly and Company, Illinois Ventures, and MIT.
The company is developing a machine-executable form of chemistry designed to enable closed-loop drug discovery, creating a foundation for rapid design, synthesis, and testing of new small molecules. Excelsior’s proprietary smart blocc technology functions as a modular chemical language that AI systems can use to generate and analyze new compounds in discovery and manufacturing environments.
The funding arrives as the pharmaceutical sector faces increasing pressure to reshore domestic drug development and production. Excelsior aims to provide a scalable alternative to traditional artisanal chemistry by integrating automated synthesis with AI-driven workflows that support production at discovery scale and beyond. The company plans to use the financing to expand its platform, grow its internal pipeline, and pursue new partnerships across therapeutic and materials science applications.
Founded out of Deerfield Management and based in custom laboratory facilities in New York City’s Cure innovation campus, Excelsior is led by co-founders Michael Foley, PhD, Marty Burke, MD, PhD, Bartosz Grzybowski, PhD, and Jana Jensen, PhD, MBA. The company seeks to establish itself as a cornerstone of the emerging AI-enabled chemistry landscape by creating a unified system that enables automated molecule creation and scalable manufacturing through a consistent underlying chemical framework.
Excelsior’s mission also aligns with broader national initiatives to reinforce secure, reliable supply chains for critical drug components. With substantial private investment and state-level support, the company intends to advance tools and processes that reduce dependence on offshore pharmaceutical manufacturing.
KEY QUOTES:
“Drug discovery and manufacturing are at a crossroads in the West. To stay competitive, we must discover and develop better medicines—faster. This can only be achieved through automated synthesis platforms capable of rapidly producing purified compounds and testing them across multiple assays simultaneously—generating the rich data AI needs to cut years off traditional discovery timelines. Our proprietary smart bloccs platform is the first system to seamlessly integrate discovery and scale-up chemistry, enabling the reshoring of drug discovery and manufacturing. We are starting with drug discovery but will work across multiple sectors.”
Michael Foley, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO, Excelsior Sciences
“The idea that sparked Excelsior arose via the company-building relationship Deerfield cultivated with Dr. Marty Burke, whose lab at the University of Illinois discovered and patented the insights that power the smart blocc technology. We view Excelsior’s applications to drug discovery and manufacturing as transformational, and we are pleased to have attracted such strong syndicate partners to advance what we have begun.”
Jim Flynn, Managing Partner, Deerfield Management
“Everyone’s talking about AI-designed drugs, but they cannot become a reality without scalable chemistry. Excelsior is the missing piece. They’ve built the right chemistry for the AI era, where design, synthesis, and testing happen in a closed loop. It’s turning theory into tangible molecules and real medicine. That’s why we backed this exceptional team as part of the Sofinnova Digital Medicine strategy.”
Edward Kliphuis, Partner, Sofinnova Partners
“Excelsior is closing the gap between what AI can model in theory and what chemistry can make in the real world. Being able to manufacture small molecules this way opens the door to breakthroughs in new medicines and materials science, and it’s a critically strategic capability to build here in the U.S.”
Nessan Bermingham, Khosla Ventures
“Excelsior Sciences exemplifies how New York continues to attract companies redefining the frontiers of life sciences. Their technology will help address one of the most pressing challenges in American pharmaceutical manufacturing—securing domestic drug supply chains—while establishing our state as a leader in AI-powered chemistry and advanced manufacturing. Empire State Development is proud to support their work as they help shape the future of scientific discovery and production in New York.”
Hope Knight, President, CEO and Commissioner, Empire State Development
