AI-for-Science start-up DP Technology raises US$114 million in Series C round

DP Technology – the developer of a suite of AI tools used by researchers for work spanning drug design to battery development – has raised more than 800 million yuan (US$114 million) in Series C financing to expand research and development (R&D) and hire talent.\nThe Beijing-based AI-for-Science (AI4S) start-up said on Wednesday that the round drew backing from a mix of state-linked and venture investors, including Fortune Venture Capital, Beijing Jingguorui Equity Investment Fund, Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Beijing Pharmaceutical and Health Industry Investment Fund, Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group and Oriza Hua.\nThe funding would be used primarily to recruit talent and expand R&D, the company said.\nFounded in 2018 by two Peking University alumni, DP Technology focuses on developing AI4S tools for fundamental research, life sciences and materials science. The sector uses artificial intelligence and advanced computing to accelerate scientific discovery, from molecular simulation to laboratory automation.\nDP Technology’s product line-up spans multiple stages of the research process.\nIts offerings include Particle Universe, an AI model system for scientific simulation; Bohrium, a cloud-based research platform and asset hub; and Uni-Lab, a laboratory operating system.\nThe company has also developed Hermite, a computer-aided drug design platform; RiDYMO, an R&D platform targeting previously “undruggable” biological targets; Piloteye, a battery design platform; Lebesgue Intelligent Computing, a computing traffic controller; and SciMaster, a general-purpose scientific AI agent that integrates with its other products.\nThe company said its platforms served more than 3 million users across 1,000 universities and research organisations worldwide, as well as more than 150 corporate clients, including PetroChina, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited and BYD.\n“AI for Science is more than just an emerging sector – it is a foundational infrastructure project for decades of scientific discovery to come,” Zhang Linfeng, founder and chief scientist of DP Technology, said in a statement.\nZhang was part of the team that won the 2020 ACM Gordon Bell Prize – often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of supercomputing” – for research into machine-learning methods that achieved record-breaking molecular dynamics simulations.\nThe company’s long-term ambition was to build “AI scientists” and an “intelligent system for scientific discovery”, according to Sun Weijie, founder and chief executive of DP Technology.\nDP Technology previously completed a Series B financing round in January 2022, which raised tens of millions of dollars in a deal co-led by Source Code Capital and Qiming Venture Partners, with continued participation from GL Ventures and Matrix Partners China.\nEarlier rounds included a Series A led by GL Ventures with Matrix Partners China and BioMap as co-investors, following a pre-A round led by Vision Plus Capital with Crystal Stream as a co-investor and an angel round backed by Baidu Venture, Will Hunting Capital and Peakview Capital.\nThe deal comes as competition to lead AI4S development accelerates globally.\nIn August, China’s State Council listed “AI Plus Scientific Research” as part of its national “AI Plus” action plan.\nIn November, the United States launched the “Genesis Mission”, a federal initiative aimed at supporting artificial intelligence research and its scientific applications.\n