Insider Brief
- BigHat Biosciences, a clinical-stage AI-driven protein therapeutics company, has raised a $75 million Series C co-led by DFJ Growth and Premji Invest, with participation from Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Amgen Ventures and Eli Lilly, bringing total funding to $223 million.
- The company pairs frontier AI with autonomous, high-throughput experimentation to generate biological data at scale, and will use the funding to grow that platform and advance its pipeline, including BHB810, one of the first AI-designed biologics to reach humans, and BHB299, which it plans to take into human trials in 2027.
- Co-founder and CEO Peyton Greenside said BigHat will keep forming partnerships with technology and life sciences companies, building on collaborations with Amgen, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Lilly, as well as partnerships with frontier AI companies for agentic therapeutic design.
PRESS RELEASE — BigHat Biosciences, a clinical-stage, AI-driven protein therapeutics platform company, has announced the completion of a $75 million Series C financing, bringing its total funding raised to date to $223 million. The round was co-led by DFJ Growth & Premji Invest with participation from Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, Sigmas Group, and existing investors including 8VC, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amgen Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Discovery Ventures, GRIDS Capital, Intermountain Ventures, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Quadrille Capital, and Section 32.
BigHat has built an autonomous AI and experimental platform that generates proprietary, fit-for-purpose biological data at scale to drive today’s leading frontier models for therapeutic design. The financing will support continued growth of BigHat’s leading platform for rapid data generation to power frontier intelligence for protein design, as well as advancement of the company’s pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics, including BHB810 and BHB299, to key clinical readouts.
“Our mission is to design transformative therapeutics by combining frontier AI with the autonomous generation of gold-standard biological data,” said Peyton Greenside, co-founder and CEO of BigHat. “This financing will help us advance both sides of that mission: our pipeline of BigHat-designed therapeutics, beginning with BHB810, one of the first AI-designed biologics to reach the clinic, and our leading platform for AI-designed biologics. We look forward to continuing to form partnerships with major technology and life sciences companies and are thrilled to partner with a group of investors who share our vision. With their support, we can continue to scale our platform and pipeline to deliver better medicines to patients more quickly.”
“BigHat has uniquely enabled reinforcement learning for molecular design with a platform optimized for industry-leading speed, at the scale today’s frontier models need,” said Justin Kao, Partner at DFJ Growth. “This integrated learning loop is a powerful advantage, enabling BigHat to rapidly design and optimize therapeutics with the properties needed for clinical development. The strength of the platform is reflected in both BigHat’s partnerships with pharmaceutical and tech companies and its growing pipeline of next-generation therapeutics. We’re excited to support BigHat as it scales its platform and advances these programs toward patients.”
Since the company’s $80 million Series B financing in 2022, BigHat has demonstrated the versatility of its platform both within the internal BigHat pipeline and via external partnerships, and across a range of protein engineering challenges. The company has applied its integrated AI and experimental capabilities across diverse modalities, therapeutic areas and molecular design objectives while generating the gold-standard datasets needed to train and improve AI models.
Recent achievements include:
- Advanced first program into the clinic: Dosed the first patient in a Phase 1 trial evaluating lead program, BHB810, a novel CDH17-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) for gastric cancer and other advanced gastrointestinal tumors. BHB810 is the first clinical program from BigHat’s AI discovery platform and one of the first AI-driven biologics to reach humans.
- Nominated second development candidate: Advanced BHB299, an avidity-driven T-cell engager designed to selectively target CEACAM6-expressing solid tumors, which is nearing completion of preclinical development. The company plans to begin human trials of BHB299 in 2027.
- Progressed broader internal pipeline: Beyond the two lead assets, BigHat has created a proprietary preclinical pipeline of antibody therapeutics for oncology and immunology.
- Achieved platform validation as partner of choice to pharma: Forged valuable collaborations with leading companies, including Amgen, Merck, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), AbbVie and Lilly. Since forming these collaborations, BigHat has announced successful completion of a strategic collaboration with J&J and three project collaborations with Merck. The company has also expanded beyond two therapeutic collaborations with Lilly by joining Lilly TuneLab to support machine learning-enabled biologics discovery.
- Established frontier AI partnerships: Formed innovative partnerships with leading frontier AI companies to deploy state-of-the-art models for agentic therapeutic design.
- Bolstered leadership team: Appointed Stefan Weigand, Ph.D., former Head of Large Molecule Research at Roche, as Chief Scientific Officer in June 2026, and John Corbin, Ph.D., former Chief Technology Officer at Tizona Therapeutics, as Chief Development Officer in June 2023, strengthening the company’s multidisciplinary team with experience spanning machine learning and AI, synthetic biology, protein engineering, automation, drug discovery and therapeutic development.
- Raised additional funds: Closed a $44 million Series B extension in 2025, led by pharma and strategic investors.
“Biologics rarely fail in the clinic because they cannot bind a target; they fail because they lack the properties that turn a promising binder into an actual medicine. Peyton and the team built BigHat to engineer those properties in from the earliest stages of design, to address the hardest problems in the field, and the result is a clinical-stage pipeline and a data advantage that compounds with every program,” said Marc Martin Casas, Vice President of Biotech and Healthcare at Premji Invest. “At Premji Invest, we partner with teams that think big and have the discipline to build enduring companies, and BigHat is exactly that. We are proud to co-lead this financing and to support the team as they bring transformative medicines to patients.”
About BigHat Biosciences
BigHat Biosciences is an AI-native biotechnology company designing and developing next-generation protein therapeutics. BigHat’s proprietary platform integrates frontier AI with autonomous, high-throughput experimentation to generate gold-standard biological data at scale, creating a continuous learning loop between molecular design and experimental validation. This integrated approach enables BigHat to rapidly design, optimize and advance differentiated therapeutics with the properties needed for clinical development. By combining leading technology with deep therapeutic development expertise, BigHat is working to translate advances in AI and biology into transformative medicines for patients. BigHat is headquartered in San Mateo, CA. Learn more at www.bighatbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Contacts
Media Contact Liz Schwarzbachliz@bighatbio.com
SOURCE
Insider Brief
- BigHat Biosciences, a clinical-stage AI-driven protein therapeutics company, has raised a $75 million Series C co-led by DFJ Growth and Premji Invest, with participation from Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Amgen Ventures and Eli Lilly, bringing total funding to $223 million.
- The company pairs frontier AI with autonomous, high-throughput experimentation to generate biological data at scale, and will use the funding to grow that platform and advance its pipeline, including BHB810, one of the first AI-designed biologics to reach humans, and BHB299, which it plans to take into human trials in 2027.
- Co-founder and CEO Peyton Greenside said BigHat will keep forming partnerships with technology and life sciences companies, building on collaborations with Amgen, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Lilly, as well as partnerships with frontier AI companies for agentic therapeutic design.
PRESS RELEASE — BigHat Biosciences, a clinical-stage, AI-driven protein therapeutics platform company, has announced the completion of a $75 million Series C financing, bringing its total funding raised to date to $223 million. The round was co-led by DFJ Growth & Premji Invest with participation from Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, Sigmas Group, and existing investors including 8VC, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amgen Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Discovery Ventures, GRIDS Capital, Intermountain Ventures, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Quadrille Capital, and Section 32.
BigHat has built an autonomous AI and experimental platform that generates proprietary, fit-for-purpose biological data at scale to drive today’s leading frontier models for therapeutic design. The financing will support continued growth of BigHat’s leading platform for rapid data generation to power frontier intelligence for protein design, as well as advancement of the company’s pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics, including BHB810 and BHB299, to key clinical readouts.
“Our mission is to design transformative therapeutics by combining frontier AI with the autonomous generation of gold-standard biological data,” said Peyton Greenside, co-founder and CEO of BigHat. “This financing will help us advance both sides of that mission: our pipeline of BigHat-designed therapeutics, beginning with BHB810, one of the first AI-designed biologics to reach the clinic, and our leading platform for AI-designed biologics. We look forward to continuing to form partnerships with major technology and life sciences companies and are thrilled to partner with a group of investors who share our vision. With their support, we can continue to scale our platform and pipeline to deliver better medicines to patients more quickly.”
“BigHat has uniquely enabled reinforcement learning for molecular design with a platform optimized for industry-leading speed, at the scale today’s frontier models need,” said Justin Kao, Partner at DFJ Growth. “This integrated learning loop is a powerful advantage, enabling BigHat to rapidly design and optimize therapeutics with the properties needed for clinical development. The strength of the platform is reflected in both BigHat’s partnerships with pharmaceutical and tech companies and its growing pipeline of next-generation therapeutics. We’re excited to support BigHat as it scales its platform and advances these programs toward patients.”
Since the company’s $80 million Series B financing in 2022, BigHat has demonstrated the versatility of its platform both within the internal BigHat pipeline and via external partnerships, and across a range of protein engineering challenges. The company has applied its integrated AI and experimental capabilities across diverse modalities, therapeutic areas and molecular design objectives while generating the gold-standard datasets needed to train and improve AI models.
Recent achievements include:
- Advanced first program into the clinic: Dosed the first patient in a Phase 1 trial evaluating lead program, BHB810, a novel CDH17-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) for gastric cancer and other advanced gastrointestinal tumors. BHB810 is the first clinical program from BigHat’s AI discovery platform and one of the first AI-driven biologics to reach humans.
- Nominated second development candidate: Advanced BHB299, an avidity-driven T-cell engager designed to selectively target CEACAM6-expressing solid tumors, which is nearing completion of preclinical development. The company plans to begin human trials of BHB299 in 2027.
- Progressed broader internal pipeline: Beyond the two lead assets, BigHat has created a proprietary preclinical pipeline of antibody therapeutics for oncology and immunology.
- Achieved platform validation as partner of choice to pharma: Forged valuable collaborations with leading companies, including Amgen, Merck, Johnson & Johnson (J&J), AbbVie and Lilly. Since forming these collaborations, BigHat has announced successful completion of a strategic collaboration with J&J and three project collaborations with Merck. The company has also expanded beyond two therapeutic collaborations with Lilly by joining Lilly TuneLab to support machine learning-enabled biologics discovery.
- Established frontier AI partnerships: Formed innovative partnerships with leading frontier AI companies to deploy state-of-the-art models for agentic therapeutic design.
- Bolstered leadership team: Appointed Stefan Weigand, Ph.D., former Head of Large Molecule Research at Roche, as Chief Scientific Officer in June 2026, and John Corbin, Ph.D., former Chief Technology Officer at Tizona Therapeutics, as Chief Development Officer in June 2023, strengthening the company’s multidisciplinary team with experience spanning machine learning and AI, synthetic biology, protein engineering, automation, drug discovery and therapeutic development.
- Raised additional funds: Closed a $44 million Series B extension in 2025, led by pharma and strategic investors.
“Biologics rarely fail in the clinic because they cannot bind a target; they fail because they lack the properties that turn a promising binder into an actual medicine. Peyton and the team built BigHat to engineer those properties in from the earliest stages of design, to address the hardest problems in the field, and the result is a clinical-stage pipeline and a data advantage that compounds with every program,” said Marc Martin Casas, Vice President of Biotech and Healthcare at Premji Invest. “At Premji Invest, we partner with teams that think big and have the discipline to build enduring companies, and BigHat is exactly that. We are proud to co-lead this financing and to support the team as they bring transformative medicines to patients.”
About BigHat Biosciences
BigHat Biosciences is an AI-native biotechnology company designing and developing next-generation protein therapeutics. BigHat’s proprietary platform integrates frontier AI with autonomous, high-throughput experimentation to generate gold-standard biological data at scale, creating a continuous learning loop between molecular design and experimental validation. This integrated approach enables BigHat to rapidly design, optimize and advance differentiated therapeutics with the properties needed for clinical development. By combining leading technology with deep therapeutic development expertise, BigHat is working to translate advances in AI and biology into transformative medicines for patients. BigHat is headquartered in San Mateo, CA. Learn more at www.bighatbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
Contacts
Media Contact Liz Schwarzbachliz@bighatbio.com
SOURCE
