FundraiseSep 24, 2026, 12:38 UTC

BigHat Biosciences raises $75M Series C for AI-designed drugs

What's the deal? BigHat Biosciences has raised $75 million in a Series C round to advance its AI-designed therapeutics and its agentic data platform for rapid protein design.

Who's backing it? The round was co-led by DFJ Growth and Premji Invest, with new participation from Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures and Sigmas Group, alongside existing investors 8VC, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amgen Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Discovery Ventures, GRIDS Capital, Intermountain Ventures, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Quadrille Capital and Section 32. The round brings BigHat's total funding raised to date to $223 million.

What's the endgame? The company pairs machine learning with a wet lab to design protein-based drugs faster. The new capital backs both its therapeutic pipeline and the platform that powers it, including BHB810, an antibody-drug conjugate for gastric and other gastrointestinal cancers now dosing patients in a Phase 1 trial, and BHB299, a T-cell engager targeting CEACAM6-expressing solid tumours that BigHat plans to take into human trials in 2027.

Why it matters? The $75 million round lands in the upper tier for its class, ranking in roughly the 81st percentile by deal size. That signals investor appetite for companies fusing AI with laboratory drug discovery.

The signal: Capital is flowing to startups that treat AI not as an add-on but as the core engine of drug design. BigHat's raise reflects a market betting that software-driven biology can compress the slow, costly work of building new therapeutics.