Who will make the medicines AI designs? The startups to watch
AI drug discovery has raised a record $8.1B in 2026. The 80 startups building robot labs and automated factories to test and make those drugs raised $539M, and five big drugmakers have backed some of them.
By Boris Bavinck and Dealroom Next-Gen API · Every drug candidate an AI model proposes still has to be made and tested in a lab and, if it works, manufactured. Dealroom maps 80 startups building robot labs and automated factories for those steps. Below: the market map, the ten to watch, the drugmakers backing them, and where the money has gone so far.
The landscape
Dealroom maps 80 startups that automate the steps after drug discovery. Testing: autonomous labs (14), lab robots and cloud labs (20) and automated chemistry (5). Making: cell and gene therapy manufacturing (14), continuous and point-of-care manufacturing (8) and process development (19).
The startups to watch
Six of the ten test drug candidates and four make them. Lila Sciences has the highest Signal and the fastest-growing team. Differential Bio and Ensemble Biosystems, both founded in the last two years, are on the list with under $20M raised. Cellares, the most-funded maker, ranks 11th.
Ten startups to watch
The ten of the 80 with the highest Dealroom Signal, a 0 to 100 score of a company’s momentum
-
1Test · Autonomous labsLila Sciences
Building fully autonomous labs, run by AI, for new medicines and materials.
- Signal
- 97
- Team
- 535+664% in a year
- Raised
- $550M
$115M Series A, Oct 2025 · with Nvidia
-
2Test · Automated chemistry
Turns chemical code into molecules in robotic chemistry facilities in Glasgow.
- Signal
- 96
- Team
- 205+39% in a year
- Raised
- $133M
$50M Series B, Oct 2025 · with Insight Partners
-
3Test · Automated chemistry
Modular chemistry that machines can assemble, to make and test drug candidates faster.
- Signal
- 95
- Team
- 27+170% in a year
- Raised
- $95M
$70M Series A, Dec 2025 · with Eli Lilly
-
4Test · Autonomous labs
Robots that run laboratory experiments, directed by AI.
- Signal
- 93
- Team
- 73+143% in a year
- Raised
- $63M
$52M Series A, Dec 2025 · with Human Capital
-
5Test · Autonomous labs
An automated lab that makes and tests AI-designed proteins ordered over the web.
- Signal
- 92
- Team
- 37+37% in a year
- Raised
- $48M
$40M Series A, Aug 2026 · with Highland Europe
-
6Test · Automated chemistry
AI chemistry and automated high-throughput synthesis, with a self-driving lab in Singapore.
- Signal
- 91
- Team
- 36+38% in a year
- Raised
- $71M
$45M Early VC, Dec 2025 · with Granite Asia
-
7Make · Cell and gene therapy manufacturing
Robotic clusters that automate cell and gene therapy manufacturing.
- Signal
- 91
- Team
- 77+31% in a year
- Raised
- $98M
$75M Series B, Oct 2026 · with AstraZeneca
-
8Make · Process development and AI for productionEarly
Robotic lab automation and AI modelling to scale up fermentation processes.
- Signal
- 91
- Team
- 40% in a year
- Raised
- $2.2M
$2.2M Seed, Mar 2025 · with Ananda Impact Ventures
-
9Make · Continuous and point-of-care manufacturing
Automated systems that let pharmacies make personalised medicines.
- Signal
- 90
- Team
- 47+42% in a year
- Raised
- $25M
$12M Growth equity, Jul 2026 · with HealthCap
-
10Make · Process development and AI for productionEarlyEnsemble Biosystems
Container-sized manufacturing modules run by AI process control.
- Signal
- 90
- Team
- 8+100% in a year
- Raised
- –
No disclosed round yet
Where this is heading
Drugmakers are investing directly. Eli Lilly backed Excelsior Sciences and Persist AI, Johnson & Johnson led Cellular Origins’ Series A, and AstraZeneca joined Multiply Labs’ Series B after testing its robots. Nvidia, Danaher and Teradyne have invested too.
New founders keep arriving: 14 of the 80 startups were founded in 2025, more than in any earlier year, and 5 so far in 2026.
Next: Excelsior Sciences expects to show its full platform working by the end of 2026, and Cellares plans to start commercial manufacturing in 2027 and says it is on a path to become a public company in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Five big drugmakers have invested in startups that test and make drugs
Corporate investors in the startups’ venture rounds · Test Make
Drugmakers
- Series A · 2025Persist AISeries A · 2025
- Series C · 2023
- Series B · 2026
Series A · 2025- WhelixSeed · 2026
Chips and lab equipment
- Lila SciencesSeries A · 2025
- Series C · 2026
- Series B · 2026
Where the money has gone
AI drug discovery raised $8.1B in 2026; the startups that test and make drugs raised $539M, 15 times less. Each step has its own story.
Discover
Companies using AI to find drug candidates
$8.1Braised in 2026, a record
That is above the $6.5B of 2021. Two companies raised 41% of it.
AI drug discovery has raised a record $8.1B in 2026
Venture funding by year
20192020202120222023202420252026 YTD- Isomorphic Labs$2.1B Series B, May 2026
- Mirendil$1.2B across two rounds, June and September 2026
Test
39 startups: autonomous labs, lab robots and automated chemistry
$831Mraised in 2025, a record
Lila Sciences raised $550M of it. In 2026 testing startups have raised $118M.
Testing startups raised a record $831M in 2025
Venture funding by year
20192020202120222023202420252026 YTDMake
41 startups: automated manufacturing and process development
$421Mraised in 2026, a record
The previous high was $335M in 2023. Cellares raised $327M and Multiply Labs $75M.
Manufacturing startups have raised a record $421M in 2026
Venture funding by year
20192020202120222023202420252026 YTD
Research notes: cohort, method and sources
Discover. Venture rounds of companies Dealroom tags AI drug discovery, summed by year from Dealroom transactions. The 80 test and make startups are left out of this figure, so no round is counted twice: 22 of them also carry the tag, including Lila Sciences, Chemify and ChemLex, which removes $741M from 2025 and $85M from 2026. Some of these companies also work outside medicine; Mirendil, for example, also builds AI for materials science.
Test and make. Dealroom has no tag that covers these steps; its lab automation tag lists about 40 companies and its biomanufacturing tag includes food and materials. The 80 startups were found with semantic searches of Dealroom data (autonomous and robotic labs, cloud labs, automated chemistry, automated cell and gene therapy manufacturing, continuous and point-of-care manufacturing, bioprocess and process development automation) and screened by hand. Removed: therapy developers, AI drug design companies (counted under Discover), general-purpose robot makers, labs for materials only, service firms and food or industrial biomanufacturing. Resilience, an established contract manufacturer, is excluded; Dealroom records a $750M round for it in 2026 that was an investment in a plant with Eli Lilly. Lila Sciences also works on chemistry and materials. Groups: autonomous labs (14), lab robotics and cloud labs (20), automated chemistry (5), cell and gene therapy manufacturing (14), continuous and point-of-care manufacturing (8), process development and ai for production (19).
Startups to watch. The ten with the highest Dealroom Signal on 21 October 2026. Signal is a 0 to 100 score of a company’s momentum; it is not a valuation or a forecast. Team size and one-year growth are Dealroom headcount estimates. Corporate investors are as Dealroom records them, checked against each round’s announcement; Merck invested through its Global Health Innovation Fund, Nvidia through NVentures.
Funding. Venture rounds with a disclosed amount, pulled 20 October 2026. Cellares’ Series D is dated to its January announcement; Dealroom dates it July. New rounds reach Dealroom with a delay, so 2026 figures will rise. Map totals include all round types.