Warp Sciences Emerges From Stealth With $215 Million In Funding To Build AI-Powered Drug Discovery Chemistry Labs

Warp Sciences, a biotechnology infrastructure company based in San Francisco, has announced that it is no longer operating in secret and has raised $215 million. The company plans to build a U.S.-based chemistry research service that combines artificial intelligence (AI), robots, and experts in medicinal chemistry. Lightspeed led the funding round. Other investors included Premji Invest, Mayfield, IVP, Lux, Conviction, Menlo Ventures, and several other venture capital firms. More investors included 01 Advisors, Standard, Lowercarbon Capital, Gigascale Capital, Angular Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Uncork Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Matter VP, Zero Shot Fund, SignalFire, and Moxxie Ventures.

The company also received investments from individual investors working in AI, technology, and biotechnology. They included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Anthropic executive Mike Krieger, Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica, Figma CEO Dylan Field, OpenAI Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar.

Warp Sciences was founded by CEO Kevin Weil, Chief Scientific Officer Solomon “Sol” Reisberg, Chief Technology Officer Mano Paluri, and Chief Operating Officer DJ Patil.

Weil previously worked at OpenAI as Chief Product Officer and Vice President of Science. Reisberg led medicinal chemistry teams at Terremoto Biosciences. Paluri previously worked at Meta Superintelligence Labs and helped set up Meta’s Fundamental AI Research organization.

Patil was the first U.S. Chief Data Scientist at the White House and was also one of the founding executives at Devoted Health.

Warp Sciences is building a research platform in the United States to help drug companies and biotechnology companies make and test molecules more efficiently as they search for new medicines.

The company combines experienced chemists, automated laboratory equipment, and AI models trained on real experimental results. The goal is to create a continuous learning process: laboratory results help improve the AI models, and those improved models help make future experiments faster and more useful.

At first, the company will focus on making slightly changed versions of promising molecules, a process called lead optimization analog synthesis. Researchers can test these different versions to find and improve possible drug candidates.

This work is an important part of drug research. Even when a molecule looks promising in a design, researchers must make it and test it in experiments before they can decide whether to continue developing it.

Warp aims to shorten the time between designing a molecule and testing it. It plans to automate parts of the laboratory work while keeping experienced chemists involved to guide and check the research.

The company also sees its U.S.-based laboratories as an option for drug companies that want more control over sensitive research and their intellectual property, such as inventions and confidential scientific work.

The company is launching at a time when more people are paying attention to where drug research is outsourced. Warp pointed to a 2024 survey by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, which found that 74% of respondents had contracts with Chinese companies for services used in research before or during clinical trials.

The company also pointed to the BIOSECURE Act, which was signed into law in December 2025. The law created a framework for restricting certain biotechnology companies considered a concern from taking part in federal purchasing and funding.

Warp plans to provide chemistry research services to customers while letting pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies own and guide their drug development programs.

Unlike biotechnology startups that develop their own collections of potential medicines, Warp will focus on providing the laboratories, scientific knowledge, and technology that other organizations need to do their research.

The company has also hired robotics experts who have worked at Genesis, Skild AI, and 1X, as well as scientists from Genentech and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With its initial funding, Warp plans to build chemistry laboratories that can do more work automatically. These labs will produce experimental data to improve AI-powered research and help customers test more possible drug candidates.

KEY QUOTES:

“AI has greatly sped up software engineering and mathematics, but it has not yet had the same effect on the physical sciences. Chemistry and biology move forward when you make something, test it, and learn from the result. If we want to build more capable AI for science, we need to collect real-world data on a large scale. Warp is starting this work by making the research compounds needed for drug discovery today. At the same time, we are building laboratories and automated systems to speed up the process from an idea to an experiment and then to an answer.”

Kevin Weil, Co-Founder And CEO Of Warp Sciences

“I’ve worked with chemistry partners overseas who delivered speed and value, but I still worried about protecting the intellectual property behind our programs. We’re building Warp to give drug researchers the same level of chemistry services in the U.S., with protection for intellectual property at the center of the relationship and without the extra costs that small, specialized U.S. contract research organizations currently charge.”

Sol Reisberg, Co-Founder And Chief Scientific Officer Of Warp Sciences

“Warp’s services support drug discovery programs led by our customers. Our biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers decide which molecules to pursue and keep control of their drug programs. We’re not developing our own drugs. We’re building the infrastructure for the people who do.”

DJ Patil, Co-Founder And COO Of Warp Sciences

“Our goal is simple: every experiment should help make the next one smarter. AI needs to be more closely connected to the real work of chemistry. Connecting experiment design, laboratory work, and learning from results helps build better systems for deciding what to make and how to make it. We’re building the software, AI, and robotics alongside the laboratory so that each part is designed around what chemists actually need.”

Mano Paluri, Co-Founder And CTO Of Warp Sciences