Exclusive-AI lab Lila Sciences tops $1.3 billion valuation with new Nvidia backing

By Krystal Hu (Reuters) -AI startup Lila Sciences has raised $115 million in an extension funding round from investors including Nvidia's venture arm, lifting its valuation to more than $1.3 billion, the company told Reuters. The latest funding brings Lila's total Series A to $350 million and overall capital raised to $550 million, reflecting strong investor appetite for AI-driven scientific discovery. Founded in 2023, Lila aims to build "scientific superintelligence" by pairing specialized AI models with automated laboratories. New backers join existing investors including Flagship Pioneering, where Lila originated, General Catalyst and a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Lila said the funds will accelerate development of its "AI Science Factories," facilities equipped with robotic instruments controlled by AI to run experiments continuously. The company recently signed a 235,500-square-foot lease in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of Greater Boston’s largest lab leases this year. It also plans to open its platform to commercial customers, offering access to its AI models and automated labs via enterprise software. Lila said the platform has drawn interest from firms in energy, semiconductors and drug development, although it did not name specific companies. Unlike many AI labs focused on training large language models on internet data, a resource some experts say is nearly exhausted, Lila's strategy centers on generating proprietary scientific data through novel experiments. The company said future leadership in AI for science will hinge on owning the largest automated lab, not just the biggest data center. The company's goal is to dramatically accelerate the pace of discovery, which co-founder and CEO Geoffrey von Maltzahn described as a way to access future breakthroughs, as AI models can help scientists solve problems much faster. "What's so exciting about Lila is that we're going to use those resources very productively in a way that I feel benefits almost everyone on the planet," said von Maltzahn in an interview. "It will set in motion the scientific method in a new form," he said.  The company claims its platform has already made thousands of discoveries across life sciences, chemistry and materials. "We aren't going to bring molecules into clinical trials ourselves, or scale up new energy breakthroughs," von Maltzahn said. "Those are going to be done by partners of Lila and startups that are on a Lila platform." AI for scientific discoveries has become a focus for venture capital funding, as investors bet on the potential of specialized AI models. Periodic Labs, an AI startup founded by researchers from Google DeepMind and OpenAI, has raised $300 million last month to build an AI scientist.  (Reporting by Krystal Hu in San Francisco, Editing by Louise Heavens)

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