Superluminal Medicines, a Boston-based generative biology and chemistry company, has raised $33 million in Seed funding. The round was led by RA Capital Management, with participation from Insight Partners, NVIDIA, and Gaingels.
The company plans to use the funds to advance its pipeline of small molecule drug discovery programs, which are initially focused on high-value G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. GPCRs are a large family of proteins that play a critical role in many diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders. Superluminal Medicines' platform uses a combination of biology, chemistry, machine learning, and big data to create candidate-ready compounds with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The company's predict-design-test architecture accurately models protein shapes and designs highly selective compounds to target the precise structural change for therapeutic effect.
The company is led by CEO Cony D'Cruz, who is a seasoned drug discovery executive with over 20 years of experience. The leadership team also includes Ajay Yekkirala, Co-Founder and SVP of Discovery; Yang-Ming Zhu, SVP of Head of Engineering; Yamina A. Berchiche, Senior Director of Biology; Marek Orzechowski, Director of Computational Chemistry; and Murco Ringnalda, SVP of Head of Operations. The board of directors includes Andrew Levin, MD, PhD, Partner and Managing Director at RA Capital Management; Dylan Morris, Managing Director at Insight Partners; and Cony D'Cruz, Chief Executive Officer of Superluminal Medicines.
