AI-powered Drug Discovery Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

Algen is using CRISPR to uncover disease-driving RNA messages to find treatments for cancer, inflammation and diseases with high unmet needs. We are harnessing the power of CRISPR and machine learning to find first-in-class drugs that modulate RNA messages at single-cell resolution. Algen's founders are bioengineer from Jennifer Doudna Lab and biotech commercialization expert, teamed up with experienced pharmaceutical executives.

b12 is an AI copilot that plans how to create and test new molecules for chemists. We're like a GPS for chemistry, helping pharma companies plan the recipes for new drugs, accelerating early-stage drug discovery from years to months. Andres built the first AI agent that can autonomously think and make molecules in a robotic lab, published in Nature Machine Intelligence (750+ citations), and won the best paper award at the NeurIPS AI for Science conference. Zlatko is a 3x National Chemistry Olympiad champion, competed at IChO level, and medicinal chemist who has worked at Roche and leading lab robotics companies. He has an extensive network of hundreds of chemists across Europe. We are publishing a groundbreaking paper in Nature demonstrating our AI's ability to optimally plan chemical recipes. We run paid pilots with big pharma companies showing that our platform planned a set of experiments that achieved full conversion in a single attempt, eliminating the usual 8-12 iteration cycle.

An AI-maximalist pharma platform. We use agents to buy drugs, run clinical trials, and sell for a profit. 10x faster and 20x leaner than incumbents. Sourcing Agent: Mines public/private databases and unstructured global data to surface overlooked preclinical candidates. Scientific Agent: Runs comp bio models (ESM-3, RFdiffusion, Boltz-2, AlphaFold) to assess safety and efficacy in silico. Commercial Agent: Analyzes FDA incentives, pricing dynamics, TAM, competitive landscape, and payer alignment. Clinical Agent: Runs digital twin simulations, evaluates CRO/CMC risk, and builds trial plans to Phase 1. PoS Agent: Evaluates the most critical factors that impact the likelihood of clinical trial success. Built by 2 Stanford CS students who have built 3 startups together before.

Reticular helps pharma companies discover drugs with AI models like AlphaFold by making them steerable, just like you can prompt LLMs. Today, limited validation data means companies spend millions on failed experiments trying to steer these models through trial and error. We’re piloting our AI interpretability technology with early-stage biotechs and scaling rapidly. Just a week after our pivot, we identified the first interpretable features ever found in protein models, allowing precise control over biological functions. Nithin and John met competing in Biology Olympiads before spending 4 years as roommates at MIT publishing ML/bio research in NeurIPS and Nature. We believe biological models encode far more information than anyone is currently using - our goal is to unlock this potential.

🦠🤖 We use our computational models to make next-generation antibiotics that outcompete bacterial evolution and precisely target pathogenic bacteria, without harming good microbes or human cells. ☠️ Current antibiotics stop working because bacteria evolve resistance to them. This makes drug-resistant bacteria a looming global health crisis - already killing more people than malaria and AIDS and it is getting exponentially worse 📈. 🧬 Our approach leverages co-evolutionary protein-protein interaction datasets combined with AI to forecast bacterial mutations and create ‘future-proof’ antibiotics, addressing antibiotic resistance before it develops. This changes the game for how frequently society will need to make new antibiotics and how long our new antibiotics will be able to treat patients 👩‍⚕️. We are a team of biochemists and evolutionary biologists who met at the University of Oxford.

Angstrom AI builds GenAI-based molecular simulations to substitute wet lab experiments in the pre-clinical drug development pipeline. We are a team of 2 PhD's and 2 Professors from the University of Cambridge who decided to start a company together after we realised how to combine breakthoughs in our research in quantum-accurate models of physics and generative AI models. Our Biotech/Pharma clients can verify the efficacy and safety of new drug candidates using our computer simulations, which match the accuracy of wet lab experiments, but are over 100x faster. We achieve this accuracy by constraining our genAI-based simulations to obey the laws of physics, avoiding the hallucinations seen in other GenAI technologies. Since joining YC, Angstrom AI has developed the first physically accurate gen-AI based simulation of multiple molecules interacting. We have published the first molecule water solubility results with accuracy within the error range of wet lab experiments. We have also kicked-off a 150K pilot project with a pharma company to apply our tech to estimating solubility in their drug development pipeline.

Design, simulate, and test your proteins 100x faster with the end-to-end no-code platform for protein engineering. Powered by Amina, our AI agent. With Amina, one protein engineer can do the work of 10. Describe what you want to achieve and Amina will handle everything else – from research and design to simulation, folding, docking, and protein characterization. It asks clarifying questions if needed, intelligently understands and performs the task, and analyzes your results within the context of your project.

Tamarind Bio is a website and API which allows scientists to use computational biology tools at scale using a simple interface. On Tamarind, scientists can use ML models like AlphaFold to design and simulate molecules by simply selecting inputs instead of or setting up a high performance computing environment or dealing with DevOps. Tamarind is used by tens of thousands researchers in large pharma companies, top biotechs, and academic institutions.

Nanograb is a computational drug discovery company that uses AI to create novel targeted non-viral gene therapy vectors. Our platform designs unique combinations of small peptide binders attached to nanoparticles to safely deliver genetic medicines to specific cells and tissues in the body at scale.

Diffuse is building generative AI for protein design. Our mission is to build AI systems that engineer new and useful proteins with unprecedented control and accuracy. Our team has been behind breakthroughs in AI protein design for the past 7 years, including the first experimental validation of AI-generated proteins and diffusion models for protein structure and sequence.

Keylika is an early stage biopharma startup developing metal-based drugs using a platform synthesis technology to treat unmet medical needs. We then administer these drugs using proven delivery technologies to effect the best clinical outcomes. Our first product is a small molecule iron drug (new molecular entity) delivered by a wearable skin patch to treat Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA), with significantly higher safety, efficacy and tolerability over existing treatments. This is poised to be a best-in-class, potentially breakthrough therapy for treating iron deficiency without any GI side-effects (eg. nausea, constipation, diarrhea, etc.) typically associated with oral iron supplements, and without the risks, costs and side-effects associated with IV iron infusions. When approved, Keylika’s proprietary transdermal iron will be the world's first prescription iron patch. Iron deficiency is a hugely understated problem affecting about 1.6 billion people worldwide and more than 30 million in the US alone, translating to a $17B US market.

We are a drug discovery company developing a new generation of therapeutics that embrace the complexity of disease. Currently available approaches for creating drugs work on the principle of finding one drug-one protein 'magic bullets'. However, diseases such as cancer and autoimmunity are often the result of several dysregulated proteins across many distinct biological pathways. We are building a computational-experimental platform to design therapeutics that can target several disease-causing proteins at once. By designing multi-specific drugs, we are able to create therapeutics that are more efficacious and safer than existing medicines.

Rosebud Biosciences accelerates drug development by screening drugs against organoids (micro-organs) that have the same gene mutations as the patients. We partner with therapeutics companies to screen their drugs, and we perform our own drug discovery for rare diseases that have no existing treatments. Our organoids are also fetal-like and enable discovery of novel drug targets for pediatric diseases. This technology was validated at Stanford, published in a prestigious journal, and has already led to the discovery of a drug target in a pediatric heart disease that could not have been found using traditional disease models.

Our mission is to enable pharmaceutical and biotech companies to bring more antibody therapies to patients. Using AI and massively parallel experimentation, we design antibodies that precisely bind the disease target at the right location, while minimizing manufacturability and toxicity risks. We are a well-funded, revenue-generating, bilingual company of wet- and dry-lab scientists, and are founded by AI and protein design experts from Harvard University.

At CellChorus, we apply artificial intelligence to evaluate thousands of microscopy videos in parallel to evaluate how immune cells move, interact and perform over time. This allows our customers to discover, develop, manufacture and deliver cell therapies, antibodies, vaccines and other novel therapies faster, at lower expense, and with higher rates of success. Our customers include top-25 biopharma companies and seed-stage biotechs that are developing cell therapies, antibody therapeutics and vaccines (including one of the few companies with an approved CAR T cell therapy). Hear from the team at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE9x_tm0XnI

Proteins are the most advanced nanotechnology we know of. At Adaptyv, we’re building a fully automated protein foundry to allow you to synthesize and test any protein you design.

Output Biosciences is pioneering Biologically-Aware Generative AI to finally understand complex biological systems. Our new generative AI architecture can handle the extremely long, nonlinear, fragmented, and high dimensional data of biological systems. We are building Large Biological Models that can generate breakthrough medicines and transform the way we diagnose, treat and prevent disease.

Parallel Bio is pioneering human-first drug discovery by creating the first map of human biology. Using groundbreaking biological and computational tools that track real clinical outcomes, the company generates data that enable earlier, more reliable decisions about disease biology and drug development. Parallel Bio’s platform overcomes the core limitations of traditional animal testing, which fails to encapsulate the complexity of human biology. The company is building internal pipelines of novel disease targets and drug candidates in both cancer and autoimmune disease, while collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to evaluate therapies directly in human systems to reduce the cost and risk of clinical trials. Based in San Francisco, the company was founded in 2021 by two of the world’s leading experts in replacing animal models with human-first platforms.

Matrubials is an anti-infectives company, focused on human milk peptides as therapeutics to address antimicrobial resistance and modern diseases. Currently the global rise in severe bacterial infections and the drying pipeline of effective treatments are burdensome for healthcare and economics. Sculpted by evolution, milk, first food for the newborn, provides an exemplary solution to address the nutritive and protective challenges an infant is faced with. The anti-pathogenic molecules from milk can be developed into therapeutics geared towards all-age diseases. Our first indication is bacterial vaginosis, a bacterial dysbiosis related inflammation that results in recurrent infections, disruption of homeostasis and long-term clinical complications in women of reproductive age, including but not limited to preterm births, fertility issues and increased rates of STDs. Our next inflection point is the evaluation of rapidly acting and selective candidate peptides in pre-clinical host impact and early safety studies, which can aid clinical and portfolio development towards topical applications.

SFA Therapeutics is creating therapeutically-tailored oral drugs that regulate the immune system; with a focus on autoimmune diseases and cancers that originate from chronic inflammation. There are over 300 million patients who suffer from autoimmune diseases. Our treatment is designed to block the root cause of many of these chronic inflammatory diseases, with safe oral drugs. We have strong clinical data from a phase 1b clinical trial in psoriasis, and human data in pancreatic cancer, uveitis and NASH. we have a total of 9 drugs in our pipeline and 15 patents.

We are the only AI-native biotech pioneering small and large molecule therapeutics discovery by integrating massive multimodal data, frontier AI models, and high-throughput lab automation into an infrastructure for AI-enabled drug discovery.

PostEra is building a modern 21st century biopharma. We're using our advances in machine learning to accelerate Medicinal Chemistry and bring more cures to patients. PostEra advances small molecule programs through partnerships with biopharma while also advancing its own internal pipeline. We've raised $26M from top investors and closed $1Bn in AI partnerships, signing multi-year agreements with Amgen, Pfizer and the NIH. PostEra also launched and led the world's largest open-science drug discovery effort; COVID Moonshot.

Menten AI designs protein drugs and enzymes using quantum computing and machine learning. Their technology leapfrogs current computational methods making it possible to design previously intractable proteins. The team created the first protein design algorithm for current and near-term quantum computers and created the world’s first protein designed on a quantum computer. They are now working on 3 new proteins, including a peptide to prevent the spread of viruses like Covid-19. They have 2 paid pilot projects with multinational chemical companies and 4 LOI’s with pharma and biotech companies.

Altay develops small molecule drugs to treat chronic liver diseases like liver fibrosis and liver cancer. Our co-founder Dr. Osman Ozes, led the first drug development program for Esbriet (Pirfenidone), resulting in the first FDA approved therapy for lung fibrosis. Esbriet is now a $1 billion/year drug and has already made over $6 billion in revenue. With a team that has over 70+ years of small molecule drug development experience, we intend to do the same with chronic liver diseases, which affects over 20 million Americans and represents a market size of over $30 billion. We know we are well positioned for success because we have shown excellent pre-clinical mouse data in several liver fibrosis models using our novel small molecule. We demonstrate a reduction in fibrosis with our drug, but more significantly, we show a reversal in fibrotic tissue back to normal tissue. With our current developmental strategy, we hope to have a clinic-ready compound by the end of 2021 and be in phase I clinical trials by mid of 2022.

Persephone Biome develops live biotherapeutic products to modulate the metabolism of gut microbes, for applications in disease prevention and cure. We take a unique engineering approach using systems and synthetic biology to understand the complexities of the microbiome.

Macromoltek: Revolutionizing antibody design. Description: Macromoltek, a computational de novo drug design company, rapidly produces accurate and credible antibody designs. We have built a proprietary platform that enables design against difficult targets inaccessible by traditional methods and have are already designing antibodies for large biopharmas and smaller biotechs.

Qvin is the first and only healthcare service to scientifically prove menstrual blood can test for critical health information – just like a traditional laboratory blood test. Women's health has always been under-prioritized in science. We still operate in a world built by men, for men. It’s why in 2014, Dr. Sara Naseri and Søren Therkelsen started Qvin to research, develop, and patent a product that powers an underserved and understudied population—women. Over 70% of the decisions our doctors make are influenced by blood test results. Every month, 1.8 billion people across the world menstruate. However, the blood our bodies naturally deliver every month has never been explored as a testing source. And yet, menstrual blood has been left unexplored. Qvin is the first and only healthcare service to use period blood as a non-invasive blood test. We exist to give women an easy, insightful way to monitor existing health issues, proactively screen for others, and go into doctor visits more informed and confident of their own health. Our health technology platform helps women manage their health better through a non-invasive blood collection device named the Q-Pad™. All of us at Qvin want to move the study of women forward. We want to close the gender data gap. And we stand for every person who identifies with women, however they define it.

Numerion Labs is an AI-native company accelerating the discovery of life-saving medicines through the development and use of cutting-edge machine learning algorithms. The company unites computational chemistry, structural biology, and medicinal chemistry to pioneer the next generation of AI-driven drug discovery platforms.

Pipe|bio is the bioinformatics cloud for antibody / peptide screening & drug development. We enable scientists to analyze and manage massive amounts of DNA sequencing data themselves without the need for bioinformaticians or programmers. The software is highly visual and enables you to overlay and filter information from different sources across your organization; be it assay data, sequence data or other process metadata. Insights from past results can be used to guide new experiments and they get better as you upload more and more data. Team leads get oversight and these capabilities combined empower organizations to find better drugs, faster. We believe that science moves faster when scientists can curate and analyse their own data.

Known Medicine combines patient-specific 3D cell culture & AI to translate drugs to clinical success. We receive patient tumors, break them down, make thousands of micro-tumors, and then treat each with different drugs to determine which they will respond best to.