NVIDIA Spotlights Drug Discovery AI Startups at 4D Meets AI

By Rory McCann, Marketing Manager & Conference Producer, LSN

NVIDIA Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, Renee Yao is shining a spotlight on exceptional AI startups using their technology to advance drug discovery. This startup showcase will feature leaders from three AI companies – Entos, Insilico Medicine, and nference – at next week’s 4D Meets AI digital partnering conference.

The startups showcase complements the mission of 4D Meets AI in its goal of highlighting exceptional AI technology and its applications in advancing healthcare. 4D Meets AI promotes and facilitates conversations that lead to deals funding the future of AI technology improving medical care and overall health for future generations.

There’s still time to sign up for 4D Meets AI, March 18-19. If you’re fundraising for your AI technology, you don’t want to miss this partnering experience! Check out NVIDIA’s startup showcase and sign up to start meeting with early-stage companies, investors, service providers, and strategic partners advancing AI technology for health and wellness.

NVIDIA Inception Drug Discovery AI Startup Showcase
Moderator: Renee Yao, Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, NVIDIA
Pharma companies’ overall venture investments have grown steadily over the last 5 years — but AI has emerged as a standout area of investment, with pharma incumbent-backed healthcare AI funding growing more than 10x since 2018. In this talk, you will hear about NVIDIA inception program benefits for healthcare AI startups and hear about a few cutting-edge drug discovery AI startups’ latest breakthroughs.

Accelerating Molecular Discovery through GPU-Enabled Physics-Based Machine Learning
Tom Miller, PhD, CEO, Entos, Inc.

GPU-Enabled Generative Biology and Generative Chemistry for End-to-End Drug Discovery
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder & CEO, Insilico Medicine

nference: Making Biomedical Knowledge Computable
Tyler Wagner, PhD, Senior Director, Biomedical Research, nference

Speaker Bios

Renee Yao, Global Healthcare AI Startups Lead, NVIDIA (Moderator)
Renee Yao leads global healthcare AI startups at NVIDIA, managing 1000+ healthcare startups in digital health, medical instrument, medical imaging, genomics, and drug discovery segments. Previously she worked as a senior product manager and product marketing manager for AI Systems at NVIDIA.

Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, Founder & CEO, Insilico Medicine
Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine (insilico.com), a leader in next-generation artificial intelligence technologies for drug discovery, biomarker development. He is also the founder and CEO of Deep Longevity, Inc, a global company developing a broad range of artificial intelligence-based biomarkers of aging and longevity. Since 2015 he invented critical technologies in the field of generative adversarial networks (GANs) and reinforcement learning (RL) for generation of the novel molecular structures with the desired properties and generation of synthetic biological and patient data. He also pioneered the applications of deep learning technologies for prediction of human biological age using multiple data types, transfer learning from aging into disease, target identification, and signaling pathway modeling. Under his leadership Insilico raised over $50 million in multiple rounds from expert investors, opened R&D centers in 6 countries and regions, and partnered with multiple pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and academic institutions. Prior to founding Insilico, he worked in senior roles at ATI Technologies (acquired by AMD in 2006), NeuroG Neuroinformatics, Biogerontology Research Foundation. Since 2012 he published over 130 peer-reviewed research papers, and 2 books including “The Ageless Generation: How Biomedical Advances Will Transform the Global Economy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He serves on the editorial boards of Aging Research Reviews, Aging, Trends in Molecular Medicine, Frontiers in Genetics, and co-chairs the Annual Aging Research, Drug Discovery and AI Forum (7th annual in 2020) at Basel Life, one of Europe’s largest industry events in drug discovery. He is the adjunct professor of artificial intelligence at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

Tom Miller, PhD, CEO, Entos, Inc.

Tom Miller is a scientist and entrepreneur with a focus on AI-driven methods for molecular simulation and discovery. Following a PhD at Oxford and a postdoc at UC Berkeley, he joined the Caltech faculty in 2008 and was promoted to full professor in 2013. He has published more than 120 peer-reviewed articles and received awards for research excellence from the Sloan Foundation, Dreyfus Foundation, and American Chemical Society. He has mentored dozens of students and postdocs that are now leaders in academics and industry. In 2020, Tom co-founded Entos, Inc. to accelerate molecular and materials discovery via physics-based machine learning. In the past year, Entos has recruited over 25 world-class AI researchers, software engineers, and drug discovery scientists and continues to grow.

Tyler Wagner, PhD, Senior Director, Biomedical Research, nference
Dr. Tyler Wagner is the Senior Director of Biomedical Research at nference and has been with the company for over 3 years. Prior to joining nference, Dr. Wagner obtained his PhD in the Weiss lab (MIT) and Densmore lab (BU) where he engineered both an RNA virus and mRNA into multi-functional platforms for regulated gene delivery. He continued with a postdoc in the Weiss lab where he explored in vivo regulatory strategies for RNA therapeutics. At nference, he is currently leading clinical research projects with multiple pharma companies and the Mayo Clinic, ranging from early detection of disease to real-world outcomes assessment, and is working to apply machine learning to outstanding questions in multiple therapeutic areas, including cardiology, oncology, and neuroscience.

Hot Investor Mandate: Healthcare Focused Fund Invests Up to $8M in USA-Based Technologies Across All Life Science Sectors, Including Healthtech

A specialized healthcare and life sciences investment firm with over a half-billion dollars in capital under management and expects to close their next fund in 2021. The firm invests in early-stage companies (Seed/Series A) developing innovative new medical technologies, biotechnologies, and digitally-enabled healthcare services. The firm generally invests $4-8 million of equity capital per round and up to $10-20 million over the investment life. The firm is actively investing and will make 3-5 investments in 2021. The firm focuses on USA-based opportunities.

The firm is currently looking for companies developing Medical Devices, Therapeutics, Diagnostics, and Healthcare IT products. For medical devices and therapeutics, the firm is open to the full spectrum of subsector and indication and will consider companies developing orphan indications. In HealthTech, the firm is interested in AI-enabled clinical/diagnostic/workflow platforms but will also consider other companies that fall into the broader Healthcare IT space as well, including mobile health companies developing consumer-facing apps. They will consider companies with proprietary platform technologies as well as single/multiple asset companies.

As an early-stage investor, the firm invests almost exclusively in pre-revenue companies, with significant ownership opportunities. They look for experienced management teams, help build the team, and require a seat on the company’s board.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Investor Mandate: Family-Run Investment Vehicle Focuses on Seed to Series A Medical Device Opportunities in USA and Western Europe

A family that runs an established group of companies across multiple industries actively makes direct investments into life science companies in Seed to Series A rounds, and sometimes Series B. Initial average check sizes are between $500k – 1M, though the firm has invested up to $2M. The firm does occasionally participate in pre-IPO rounds with larger commitments, but this has been in companies outside of the life sciences industry. In addition, the group is an LP in some micro-VCs that invest in various sectors, and works with them to identify promising co-investment opportunities. The firm has mainly considered opportunities in USA and Western Europe, but is open to all companies across the globe with the exception of India, as the group already has a strong network there.

Within life sciences, the firm is most interested in medical device companies and has looked into surgical devices, robotics, etc. The firm is open to all regulatory pathways, but prefers 510k companies. Current areas of interest include elderly care/longevity, genetics, and microbiome. The firm will not consider therapeutics or in vitro diagnostics companies; digital health may be considered but is not a high priority.

The firm has no specific company or management team requirements and usually acts as a co-investor. The firm has a strong hospital network as part of their business, and they actively help with the due diligence process.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Investor Mandate: USA-Based VC Firm Deploys Up to $10M in Global Devices, Diagnostics, Digital Health Companies Across Various Subsectors and Indications

A venture capital firm founded in 2020 and based in the USA is seeking opportunities in the medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health sectors of life sciences. The firm is looking to engage in Series A to Series B financing rounds with check sizes between 5 – 10 million USD. The firm prefers to lead the financing rounds but is open to co-investing. The firm will consider opportunities globally.

The firm is interested in early-stage opportunities in medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health sectors but does not invest in therapeutics. The firm is overall opportunistic and will consider various subsectors and indications. For digital health, The firm prefers b-to-b over b-to-c products. The firm will invest in all early-stage companies including pre and post commercial enterprises.

The firm seeks to work with management teams that have prior entrepreneurial experience. The firm prefers to lead financing rounds and will most likely take a board seat when leading. The firm considers themselves an active investor and will work closely with companies.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Investor Mandate: VC Firm with Strong USA & Asia Presence Invests in Digital Health & Non-Invasive Devices, Open to All Indications

A venture capital firm founded in 2007 with offices in USA and Asia has deep business expertise across these geographies and works with a close network of over 30 large Asian companies, which enables the firm to help portfolio companies beyond capital investment. The firm focuses on Series A financing round primarily in US startups with initial investment sizes ranging between $3-5M (USD) but will selectively participate in Seed and Series B rounds as well. The firm seeks to make 5-7 investments per year, and will selectively consider investment opportunities globally.

The firm invests in a wide range of technology subsectors, including consumer tech and enterprise solutions. In the life sciences/healthcare space, the firm is most interested in health IT/digital health companies including non-invasive health devices, data informatics and SaaS healthcare solutions. The firm is indication agnostic.

The firm seeks to invest in companies with strong potential in the US and Asia markets that could benefit from the firm’s value add-on. The firm prefers to act as the lead investor and have board representation, but is open to co-investing in select cases.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Mandate: CA Based Newly Established VC Invests In Digital Health Technologies, Including AI-Powered Healthcare Solutions

A newly established venture capital firm founded in 2020 and is based in San Francisco, CA. The firm is expecting to close their first fund this year, targeting $100M, and is seeking to invest in Seed to Series A companies. The firm expects to make about 80% of their investments in North America, but has a global

Within life sciences, the firm is most interested in digital health technologies, including Digital Therapeutics, AI-powered healthcare solutions, smart devices, and tech-enabled services. The firm will be extremely selective about medical device companies without a digital component. The same applies for traditional therapeutics and diagnostics sectors as well. The firm likes to see early traction (i.e. paying customer engagement), but is open to pre-revenue companies.

The firm is open to working with all kinds of management teams. The firm is capable of leading seed rounds and can act as either lead or co-investor.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email 4dmeetsai@lifesciencenation.com.

Hot Mandate: NY Based Family Office Interested In AI-related Digital Health Technologies

A family office based in New York, NY is looking to invest in medical devices and diagnostics, but will also consider therapeutics and digital health. The firm prefers companies that have some proof of concept data, with some animal studies complete, and will invest through to clinical-stage companies. The firm generally co-invests in a syndicate, and will invest between $100-500K, depending on the stage of development of the company. The firm is currently interested in investing in companies located in North America.

The firm is focused primarily on medical devices and diagnostics, but will consider therapeutics, if they are first in class, and digital health, with a focus on AI-related technologies. The firm has focused on

The firm is interested in companies with strong management teams. As the firm will generally co-invest, board representation is not usually required after investing.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email 4dmeetsai@lifesciencenation.com.