ELEM Biotech raises tens of millions of yuan to feed China's virtual cell race
What's the deal? ELEM BiotechDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Hangzhou-based biotech firm, has closed an angel round worth tens of millions of yuan. Shanghai Hongshan led, with Xinghua DingliDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and Hangzhou Runmiao Fund participating; Chuanyue Zhouqi served as financial adviser.
What does it do? Founded in 2024, ELEM produces high-throughput cell editing and perturbation sample data, supplying the upstream of the AI virtual cell (AIVC) industry. It has built an arrayed perturbation library covering 19,883 human genes, completed with wet-lab validation.
What's the money for? The company plans to deepen its high-throughput cell editing service, integrate automation equipment, and build out standardised cell line products.
Why now? China's virtual cell sector has heated up sharply since April 2026, with industry trackers counting nearly 10 funding deals. Rival Baiyao TechnologyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → recently raised tens of millions of yuan for model iteration and proprietary data.
What could go wrong? ELEM's bet rests on model teams adopting its data and converting it into paid custom work. Most figures on usage requests come from the company itself, and commercial validation remains unproven.
The signal: Competition in virtual cells is shifting from models to high-quality, reproducible experimental data. ELEM's upstream position in gene perturbation samples could address a key bottleneck — if the data proves it can scale into a business.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
