NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Nference, a developer of artificial intelligence and deep-learning software, announced today that it has raised $11 million in a Series A round of financing.
The round was led by Matrix Partners and included existing investor Matrix Capital Management.
Nference is developing a platform for synthesizing biomedical knowledge from scientific, regulatory, and commercial literature to support drug discovery and development, drug life cycle management, and precision medicine. Last year, the company partnered with the Mayo Clinic formed a joint venture called Qrativ, which is developing treatments for diseases with unmet medical need.
Nference said it will use the proceeds of the Series A to further develop its platform, advance R&D initiatives, and expand its scientific operations at its Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters. It also intends to establish a lab in Bangalore.
"The Nference AI technology is enabling an important step forward in digitizing biology," Diego Miralles, an Nference scientific advisor, said in a statement. "Nference's approach reimagines big pharma R&D by enabling entirely novel hypotheses to emerge from the triangulation of insights across traditionally siloed structured databases and unstructured text documents."
Nference also said that it has expanded its advisory board to include Harvard Medical School's George Church; the Broad Institute's Paul Clemons; Project Data Sphere President Bill Louv; Charles River Laboratories Chief Strategic Officer John Hol Qrativ Chief Medical Officer Andrew Badley; and Zeno Pharmaceuticals' Founder and CEO Anthony Sun. Other members include Miralles and Baim Institute for Clinical Research CEO Michael Gibson.