Former OpenAI science lead launches Warp Science to automate wet labs with robots

Former OpenAI subject pb Kevin Weil has launched Warp Sciences, a caller AI startup focused connected automating laboratory enactment for cause discovery. The company, which trains robots to marque and trial promising compounds identified by researchers, has raised $215 cardinal astatine an $865 million valuation, according to Weil, who announced the startup and backing connected X.

The circular was led by Lightspeed, with information from IVP, Premji Invest, and Lux Capital.

For years, biotech companies person outsourced the astir labor-intensive enactment of synthesizing thousands of variations of molecules to contractors successful China, specified arsenic WuXi AppTec. With Warp Sciences, Weil hopes to reshore that enactment and insulate the full cause improvement process from geopolitical supply-chain risks.

Wearing cameras and sensor gloves, the startup’s quality chemists volition bid robots to execute assorted laboratory tasks. By automating wet-lab work, Warp Sciences aims to accelerate cause find utilizing robots that tin run astir the clock.