Basecamp Research Raises $140 Million for AI-Developed Drugs

The British-American biotech company Basecamp Research has raised $140 million in an oversubscribed Series C funding round. The round was led by S32. Other investors include NVIDIA, the NATO Innovation Fund, Redalpine, Singular, and True Ventures, among others. Basecamp plans to use the capital to train a new generation of its biological AI models and advance its own pipeline of AI-developed therapeutics toward clinical development.

From Biological Data to New Drug Candidates

Basecamp Research aims to use AI for more than just individual steps in drug discovery. The company combines its own biological datasets with so-called foundation models and technologies designed to enable the targeted development of DNA sequences for therapeutic applications.

At the heart of this effort is the AI model EDEN. It is trained on the so-called Trillion Gene Atlas, which Basecamp describes as the world’s largest proprietary biological training dataset for AI.

The data comes from collaborations in more than 30 countries across all seven continents. According to the company, partners involved in the project include NVIDIA, Anthropic, PacBio, and Ultima Genomics.

Rather than being developed for a single scientific task, the EDEN models are designed to identify overarching biological relationships. Target applications include the development of cell and gene therapies, enzymes, and peptides.

Focus Shifts to In-House Therapy Pipeline

The Series C funding round is now specifically intended to accelerate the transition from the technological platform to the company’s own therapy candidates.

The first step is what is known as in vivo cell therapy. In this approach, cells are genetically modified directly within the patient’s body, rather than being extracted first, modified outside the body, and then re-administered.

To achieve this, Basecamp combines its EDEN models—designed to develop longer and more complex DNA sequences—with so-called serine recombinases. These are intended to enable precise integration of the sequences into the genome.

In the long term, the company sees potential applications in areas such as cancer and autoimmune diseases, among others. Basecamp has already reported positive preclinical results across multiple therapeutic approaches and disease areas. However, the press release does not provide detailed data on these results.

Broad Investor Base for the Series C Round

In addition to lead investor S32, participants include Anthropic’s Anthology Fund, Catalio Capital Management, European Tech Collective, Firebrand River Capital, Inception Fund, King Philanthropies, NATO Innovation Fund, NVIDIA, PostScriptum, Redalpine, The Rockefeller Foundation, Singular, Sovereign AI, and True Ventures.

Also participating are executives from the pharmaceutical, biotech, and industrial sectors, including Roche Vice President André Hoffmann.

Andy Conrad, general partner at S32 and former CEO of Google’s life sciences company Verily, is joining the board of directors of Basecamp Research as part of the funding round.

Further Pharmaceutical Partnerships Planned

In parallel with its own pipeline, Basecamp aims to expand its collaboration with pharmaceutical companies. To this end, the company has appointed Richard Pearce, formerly of Biogen, as Chief Business Officer.

The combination of proprietary training data and its own AI models is intended to position Basecamp ahead of other companies in the rapidly growing field of AI-driven drug discovery.

The company is collaborating with Anthropic, among others. According to Basecamp, the collaboration centered on Claude Science has already demonstrated how EDEN can generate potential therapeutic candidates based on information about a disease.

Clinical validation is still pending

With $140 million, Basecamp is securing substantial capital to steer its technology more firmly toward concrete drug development. At the same time, this marks the beginning of a crucial phase for the company.

So far, Basecamp has cited preclinical results. Whether therapies designed with EDEN will also prove safe and effective in humans remains to be demonstrated in clinical trials. Furthermore, especially when it comes to interventions in the genome, stringent regulatory and safety requirements are to be expected.

The Series C funding thus not only finances further AI training; it is also intended to enable Basecamp to transition from a technological platform for biological AI to a company with its own therapeutic pipeline.