Inceptive raises $100m, plus other digital financings

Our latest round-up of financings in the digital health category is headed by a $100 million raise of Inceptive, a start-up set up to apply artificial intelligence to the design of new drugs and vaccines.

Founded by former Google AI researcher Jakob Uszkoreit – one of the pioneers of the tech giant's work on generative AI – Palo Alto-based Inceptive says it is creating software tools "for the rational design of novel, broadly accessible medicines and biotechnologies previously out of reach," with a particular focus on RNA-based medicines.

The $100 million round comes on top of seed funding of $20 million last year and has been backed by Nvidia, Andreessen Horowitz, and Obvious Ventures. It will be used to extend the capabilities of its platform.

Another AI specialist – Ibex Medical Analytics – has raised $55 million in a Series C led by 83North that will be deployed to drive take-up of its Galen cancer diagnostic technology, which it claims is the most widely used AI technology in pathology. The round brings the total raised by the Israeli company to over $100 million.

Galen is used for cancer diagnosis and biomarker scoring and is capable of detecting more than 100 different cancer and non-cancer pathologies from medical images, according to the company. Other investors included Sienna Venture Capital and existing backers Octopus Ventures, aMoon, Planven Entrepreneur Ventures, and Dell Technologies Capital.

French digital pathology player Tribun Health has completed a Series B worth €15 million ($16 million) that will be used to accelerate the development and commercialisation of its AI-powered digital pathology platform for diagnostic and pharmaceutical laboratories.

The round, led by a fund managed by Bpifrance and backed by new investors Owkin and Vivalto, will go towards expanding sales and marketing teams in Europe and North America and deployment resources, as well as contribute to the funding for Tribun's recent acquisition of computational pathology company EyeDo.

US cancer care specialist Thyme Care, meanwhile, has brought in $60 million in a second round co-led by Foresite Capital and Town Hall Ventures and backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Casdin Capital, Frist Cressey Ventures, and AlleyCorp, taking the total raised to date above $80 million.

The company operates a digital platform, called Thyme Box, that connects patients with a care team, coordinates with their treatment provider, and provides information on diagnosis and symptom management. The Series B funds will be used to expand both its network of oncology partners in the US and its cancer care technology platform.