Colorado-based startup Enveda Therapeutics Inc., which is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to identify drug candidates, has secured $130 million in funding just months after its previous financing round.
The latest funding was co-led by Nordic investor Kinnevik and FPV Ventures, with participation from Baillie Gifford, Lux Capital and the Nature Conservancy, alongside other new and existing investors.
This funding coincides with Enveda’s initiation of a Phase I clinical trial for an oral treatment targeting atopic dermatitis, commonly known as eczema.
The drug was developed using AI to analyse naturally occurring chemical compounds and aims to treat eczema without the adverse side effects associated with many existing therapies. The company announced the trial earlier this month, confirming the enrolment of its first patient.
“The very exciting aspect of this, as well as other drugs in the pipeline, is they attack big problems faced by a large number of people,” said founder and CEO Viswa Colluru.
Valuation increase
Enveda had previously raised $55 million in June and $51 million last year, with its last reported valuation at $400 million. While the company declined to disclose its updated valuation, it confirmed that it has increased.
AI’s potential in drug development has yet to fully materialise but Enveda combines its proprietary AI with mass spectrometry data to accelerate the identification of promising chemical structures. This approach enables the processing of thousands of molecules simultaneously, significantly speeding up drug discovery.
The company is also preparing to initiate a trial for a drug aimed at treating inflammatory bowel diseases, such as Crohn’s, in 2025. Its development pipeline includes 10 molecules with the eczema and inflammatory bowel disease drugs among its leading candidates.
Phase I trials mark an early stage of drug development and most treatments do not advance through the entire process. Colluru estimates it could take five to seven years to bring successful candidates to market, pending the demonstration of safety and efficacy.
Investor Lingotto Innovation Strategy, which first backed Enveda earlier this year, joined the latest funding round due to the startup’s innovative approach. “We’re pretty strongly of the view that the whole drug discovery process is badly broken,” said James Anderson, chief investment officer at Lingotto Innovation.
He added that the industry focused too heavily on genomics at the expense of chemistry.