Andrew Hopkins

SoftBank Vision Fund 2i led the Series D and was joined by previous round lead investors, Novo Holdings and funds managed by Blackrock.

Other investors included Mubadala Investment Company, Farallon Capital, Casdin Capital, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Laurion Capital, Hongkou and Bristol Myers Squibb.

In addition, SoftBank is providing an additional $300 million equity commitment that can be drawn at the company’s discretion.

The clinical-stage pharma tech company uses artificial intelligence (AI) to design patient-based drugs. It has advanced the first two drugs into clinical trials and now has over 20 active programs in its pipeline.

Funding from the Series D round will be used to advance Exscientia’s proprietary pipeline through clinical testing as well as to continue expanding the technology platform toward autonomous drug design.

Eric Chen, managing partner of SoftBank Investment Advisers, said: “We believe Exscientia’s innovative use of AI to discover and design better quality drugs with greater efficiency has the potential to create important medicines faster than ever before.

“With the convergence of technology and biology, drug discovery is rapidly evolving in ways that will reshape the industry. The Exscientia team have been leaders in AI-based drug discovery since the field’s inception and we believe they will continue shaping its future.”

Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia, added: “All of our investors share Exscientia’s vision to discover better drugs, faster, through AI and automation. Our patient-first AI platform has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to precision design drugs that address patients’ needs. With the Series D completed, the quality and depth of our shareholder base allows us the freedom to continue to scale both our platform and pipeline.”