Partnership puts Israel on the AI and computational science map

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AION Labs, the first-of-its-kind venture studio today (January 8) announced its new partnership with Amiti Ventures, a leading early-stage venture capital firm in Israel.

The company says it is focused on initiating and promoting the adoption of artificial technologies and computational science to solve therapeutic challenges.

The partnership says the move further strengthens the alliance of global leaders in pharma, biotech, and technology investment, expanding its offering as a venture studio and partner for new startups.

“With a proven track record of identifying the best teams for the mission and investing early in the most innovative deep tech startups that shape the future, Amiti Ventures will bring important complementary capabilities and expert investor knowledge to the AION Labs partnership," said Mati Gill, CEO of AION Labs.

“We thank Amiti for its vote of confidence in our model of innovation for groundbreaking AI and computational biotech ventures. We further appreciate Amiti’s recognition that Israel’s ecosystem is poised to lead the world in bringing AI and biotech together to solve our biggest drug discovery challenges.”

The company says that by joining forces with Amiti, it is enhancing its expertise and capabilities in deep tech and computational technology critical to the success of biotech innovation.

Amiti says its extensive experience and track record in these fields will bring invaluable investor knowledge and insights to AION Labs, enabling it to more effectively develop and support early-stage startups focused on AI and computational biology.

Its first investment in the venture studio will entail investment in DenovAI Biotech’s Seed round of funding. Launched in 2022, DenovAI is developing an AI-powered biophysics solution for de novo antibody and protein design.

AION Labs builds and invests in early-stage startup teams focused on AI and computational biology in drug discovery and development. This, it says offers them top-notch resources and mentorship while working closely with them to develop new technologies that meet the most significant challenges in the pharmaceutical industry.

The partnership with Amiti Ventures will help AION Labs to advance healthcare towards patient-centric precision medicine and create a significant contribution to the health and well-being of humankind by helping to bring new treatments to market faster and more efficiently.

“We believe that AION Labs is uniquely positioned to identify the biggest challenges to accelerate drug discovery and development and then evaluate the best computational bio approaches and entrepreneurs,” said Ben Rabinowitz, founder and managing partner of Amiti Ventures.

“Its venture studio model bridges the gap between outstanding academic research, huge leaps forward in generative AI, and the biggest challenges and opportunities in the development of new medicines, and we look forward to working closely with our new partners to make this a reality.

“We also have been amazed by the can-do spirit of the AION Labs team,” added Rabinowitz. “It is that readiness to create, pull themselves up by the bootstraps and forge ahead with amazing innovation that makes AION and Israel’s entire startup ecosystem so special.”

Amiti Ventures joins the AION Labs alliance of AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, Israel Biotech Fund, BioMed X and Amazon Web Services.