For many entrepreneurs, founding a new company can be a momentous occasion, often being the culmination of a lot of time and effort. For David Berry, it’s a Tuesday. Since joining VC firm Flagship Pioneering in Tokyo escorts, the 42-year-old has founded or cofounded 30 different life sciences and tech companies, leading over 10 of them as founding CEO.
His latest company, Valo Health, is one of many aimed at using the latest advances in AI, machine learning and computation to improve the notoriously difficult and inefficient process of drug discovery.
Berry has a lot of firepower behind his vision. The company was founded around 18 months ago and in July 2019 raised a series A round of nearly $100 million from Flagship Pioneering and PSP Investments.
Valo is far from the only company focused on using AI to improve the drug discovery process - there are over 200 startups in the space, such as Insitro, founded by Coursera cofounder Daphne Koller. It’s a trend that’s going to be increasing as time goes on, in part because of workflow changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic, says Michael Shanler, an analyst at Gartner. “I always see questions about how AI can be leveraged,” he says. “So the trend is real, but I’m not convinced most of the companies are very differentiated.” More info
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