Enveda Biosciences secured $55M to search the world's biodiversity for new medicines

Enveda Biosciences describes itself as having " built the most advanced search engine for new drugs in dark chemical space." Roughly speaking, this means Enveda is making a catalog of the world's chemistry to look for potential candidates for nature-based medicines. It begins with sample profiling through mass spectrometry, which is annotated to construct a dataset that powers deep learning models capable of predicting molecules' properties and structure (in this respect, Enveda's approach is similar to the work on antimicrobials behind AMPSphere).

The predicted molecules are screened for laboratory-tested biological activity, enabling Enveda to find multiple components for a target activity. Then, the molecules are annotated for bio-availability via in vivo organ distribution data. These layers of annotations register in which organs the molecules present activity, enabling the company to find multiple candidates for a target activity and to refine the list according to the targeted organs.

The annotated dataset powers Enveda's platform, which enables researchers to find multiple molecule candidates without the labor and expense-intensive process of manually and individually isolating them. Enveda's dataset currently includes 38,000 medicinal plants delivering compounds related to around 12,000 diseases and symptoms, from where two potential drugs about to enter clinical trials have emerged.

Enveda Biosciences announced a successful $55 million Series B2 funding round this Thursday, raised with the contributions of new investors including Microsoft, The Nature Conservancy, Premji Invest, and Lingotto Investment Fund; and existing investors Kinnevik, True Ventures, FPV, Level Ventures, and Jazz Venture Partners. The Series B2 arms the company with a total capital of $230 million. Enveda plans to raise a Series C later this year after its drug candidates have started their clinical trials.