"Zhiyuan Shenlan" completed a tens of millions of yuan seed round financing, focusing on the development of an AI protein design and optimization platform | 36Kr exclusive.
36Kr has learned that Beijing Zhiyuan Shenlan Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhiyuan Shenlan") has completed a seed round financing of tens of millions of yuan. This round of financing is led by InnoAngel Fund, with Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund and Zero2IPO Ventures following the investment. The raised funds will be mainly used for the development of a function-oriented biomolecular generative AI platform, the construction of an automated protein and polypeptide functional evolution platform, and the exploration of the commercial market.
Zhiyuan Shenlan was founded in 2024, focusing on data-driven biomolecular design and manufacturing, and was incubated by MEGARobo. Dr. Wang Chengzhi, the founder, previously served as the chief scientist of MEGARobo. The "Research and Application of High-Throughput Automated Continuous Directional Evolution Platform for Screening Nanobodies" project led by his synthetic biology team and the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Tsinghua University once received key support from the Regional Innovation and Development Joint Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation.
In the human body, proteins are the main bearers of life activities. They control and drive all chemical reactions in the human body, and these chemical reactions constitute the basis of life. Therefore, for a long time, scientists have been trying to create new proteins and expect these artificial proteins to be able to control their activity by binding to small molecule compounds, thereby playing a role in fields such as disease treatment.
In recent years, as traditional mutation screening and directed evolution technologies have gradually been unable to meet the rapidly growing market demand, new technologies represented by artificial intelligence have begun to play an increasingly important role in the fields of protein structure prediction, new protein sequence generation, and protein physicochemical property prediction. In 2024, scholars such as David Baker were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to recognize their achievements in using AI technology for protein design and structure prediction.
"Biomacromolecules such as proteins have the characteristics of a huge design space, a high functional dimension, but a unified underlying logic, and are one of the life science fields most suitable for AI empowerment," explained Wang Chengzhi. In order to solve the industry bottleneck of protein design, Zhiyuan Shenlan and MEGARobo have jointly developed an industrial-level intelligent automation platform that can perform continuous directional evolution of proteins with high throughput, high efficiency, high reliability, and minimal human intervention.
"By collecting large-scale protein evolution data through automated equipment and accurately reconstructing the protein functional space from these data. This method allows the computational prediction of novel, highly adapted protein sequences without prior homology or structural information. We have integrated the two systems of automation and AI to build a multifunctional and powerful protein engineering and design platform."
Currently, based on this platform, Zhiyuan Shenlan is trying to build a protein functional space database and train the corresponding deep learning model. In the future, this technology can be widely applied to the design and optimization of enzymes, functional proteins, antibodies, polypeptides, and other forms, ultimately realizing the vision of designing biomacromolecules according to functional requirements.
It is also reported that currently, Zhiyuan Shenlan has collaborated with many domestic and foreign biotech companies, including the research and development of advanced bio-based materials, antibody optimization, and the design of new catalytic enzymes. In the future, the company will continue to collaborate with the upstream and downstream of the life and health industry chain to continuously solve industry pain points.
Investor Views:
Zhu Xiaocheng, the managing partner of InnoAngel Fund, said: "Zhiyuan Shenlan has shown strong technical potential and market prospects in the intersection of AI and biotech. The incubation of MEGARobo has also laid a solid foundation for Zhiyuan Shenlan in the automated system of large-scale biomolecular construction, characterization, and functional optimization. Dr. Wang Chengzhi, the founder of Zhiyuan Shenlan, has a deep accumulation in the field of life science automation and intelligence. We are very optimistic about the changes that Zhiyuan Shenlan will bring to the research and development of biomacromolecules and jointly promote the future development of biotechnology."
Wang Xuehui, the managing partner of Tsinghua Alumni Seed Fund, said: "The team of Zhiyuan Shenlan has chosen a technical route that takes function as the main object rather than protein structure in the field of macromolecular evolution and design, reflecting the team's unique understanding of AI empowerment in macromolecular design. The team has shown the great potential of AI in exploring the protein functional space in multiple projects. We look forward to more innovations and breakthroughs in the field of protein design and promoting the field to usher in the ChatGPT moment as soon as possible."
Zheng Lianfa, the founding partner of Zero2IPO Ventures, said: "In the field of biotechnology, the application of artificial intelligence is becoming a key force driving innovation. The Shenlan team has gathered a group of outstanding entrepreneurs with rich industrial experience. The company's unique high-throughput protein evolution platform provides a solid guarantee for the accumulation of high-quality data and new protein function prediction algorithms. The industrialization of these technologies can not only accelerate the development of new drugs, but also is expected to have a profound impact in multiple fields such as agriculture, food, daily chemicals, beauty, and environmental protection."
Huang Yuqing, the founder and CEO of MEGARobo, said: "Zhiyuan Shenlan is another successful case incubated by MEGARobo in the field of biomacromolecules after the successful incubation of the small molecule intelligent synthesis enterprise MEGAR Chemistry. During his tenure as the chief scientist of MEGARobo, Dr. Wang Chengzhi has made many breakthrough achievements in the field of Automation & AI for Science. MEGARobo has always been committed to providing strong technical support for scientific research and will continue to provide technical and ecological support to Zhiyuan Shenlan in the future to jointly promote the innovative development of the biomolecular design and manufacturing field."