Google’s AI Drug Startup Isomorphic Labs Raises $600M
Isomorphic Labs, the artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery startup spun out of DeepMind, has secured $600 million in its first-ever external funding round. The financing, led by Thrive Capital with participation from Alphabet and its venture arm GV, marks a significant milestone for the Alphabet-owned company as it scales its efforts to reshape the pharmaceutical industry.
Founded in 2021 by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, who also leads Isomorphic Labs, the company was created with a singular mission: to harness the power of AI to accelerate the process of discovering new medicines. By leveraging advanced models originally developed by DeepMind—most notably AlphaFold, which solved the protein folding problem—Isomorphic Labs is working at the intersection of biology and computation to reimagine the future of drug development.
While the company has remained relatively quiet since its inception, last year it announced strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical giants Novartis and Eli Lilly, signaling growing momentum in its commercial ambitions. Now, with $600 million in fresh capital and backing from top-tier investors, Isomorphic Labs is positioned to expand its research capabilities, grow its team, and further develop its AI platform to tackle some of the world’s most complex health challenges.
The valuation from the funding round was not disclosed, but the presence of Thrive Capital—also an investor in OpenAI, one of Google’s key rivals in the AI space—underscores the increasing investor confidence in AI’s transformative potential in life sciences.
Isomorphic Labs joins a growing list of Alphabet subsidiaries turning to external capital to accelerate their growth. Just months ago, Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle division, raised $5.6 billion in funding, bringing its valuation to over $45 billion.
With Alphabet continuing to back ambitious moonshots while inviting outside capital into the fold, Isomorphic Labs represents a bold bet on the future of medicine—where artificial intelligence doesn't just augment scientific discovery but becomes a central engine driving it forward.
