doi.bio/evolutionaryscale

EvolutionaryScale

People

Alexander Derry Alexander Rives Carolyn Kim Chetan Mishra Deniz Oktay Halil Akin Irhum Shafkat Jonathan Deaton Jun Gong Marius Wiggert Neil Thomas Nicholas James Sofroniew Raul Santiago Molina Robert Verkuil Rohil Badkundri Roshan Rao Salvatore Candido Thomas Hayes Tom Sercu Zeming Lin

Funding

Nat Friedman Daniel Gross Lux Capital Amazon NVentures

Summary

EvolutionaryScale is a startup that develops AI models to generate novel proteins for scientific research. The company was founded by ex-Meta AI researchers and is backed by Amazon and Nvidia. EvolutionaryScale aims to deepen science's understanding of biology to benefit human health and society through its AI models. The company has raised significant funding and is working on creating tools for the scientific frontier.

History

EvolutionaryScale was founded by Alexander Rives, Tom Secru, and Sal Candido, who are former Meta AI researchers. In 2019, while at Meta's AI research lab, FAIR, they began developing generative AI models to explore proteins. After their team was disbanded in 2023, they left Meta to continue their work and founded EvolutionaryScale.

Products and Services

EvolutionaryScale's flagship product is ESM3, a "frontier model" for biology. ESM3 is an AI model trained on a large dataset of natural proteins and can reason over the sequence, structure, and function of proteins. It enables the generation of new proteins for use cases such as drug discovery and materials science. The company has released ESM3 through its cloud Forge developer platform and has also made a smaller version available for offline use.

Financial Information

EvolutionaryScale has raised over \$142 million in seed funding, with participation from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Nvidia. The company plans to generate revenue through a combination of partnerships, usage fees, and revenue sharing with researchers. As of 2024, the company has approximately 20 employees.

Leadership

Competitors


EvolutionaryScale

Summary

EvolutionaryScale is a startup that develops AI models to generate novel proteins for scientific research. The company was founded by former Meta AI researchers and is backed by Amazon and Nvidia. EvolutionaryScale aims to create tools for the scientific frontier, deepening the understanding of biology to benefit human health and society. The company has raised significant funding, with a focus on building large-scale AI models for biotechnology applications.

History

EvolutionaryScale was founded by Alexander Rives, Tom Secru, and Sal Candido, who previously worked together at Meta's AI research lab, FAIR, in 2019. After their team was disbanded by Meta in 2023, the three co-founders left the company to continue their work on generative AI models for protein design.

Technology

EvolutionaryScale's flagship product is ESM3, a generative AI model trained on a vast dataset of natural proteins. ESM3 can reason over the sequence, structure, and function of proteins, enabling it to generate new proteins with specific functions. The company claims that ESM3 can be used for drug discovery, materials science, and environmental protection techniques.

Funding and Finances

EvolutionaryScale has raised over $142 million in seed funding from investors such as Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Lux Capital, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and NVentures (NVIDIA's venture capital arm). The company plans to generate revenue through a combination of partnerships, usage fees, and revenue sharing with researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

Leadership and Employees

Alexander Rives is the founder and CEO of EvolutionaryScale. The company has approximately 20 employees.


EvolutionaryScale

Summary

EvolutionaryScale is a startup that develops AI models to generate novel proteins for scientific research. The company was founded by former Meta AI researchers who were part of the disbanded "AI protein team" at Meta. EvolutionaryScale aims to revolutionize the field of biology by creating a new type of language model that enables scientists to understand, imagine, and create proteins. The company's flagship product, ESM3, is a powerful AI model trained on a vast dataset of natural proteins and can be used for drug discovery, materials science, and other biotech applications.

Funding

As of June 2024, EvolutionaryScale has raised a total of \$142 million in seed funding, with participation from prominent investors such as ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Lux Capital, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and NVentures (NVIDIA's venture capital arm). The company plans to generate revenue through a combination of partnerships, usage fees, and revenue sharing with researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

Technology

ESM3, EvolutionaryScale's AI model, is capable of understanding and generating proteins by reasoning over sequence, structure, and function. It was trained on a dataset of approximately 2.78-4 billion natural proteins and their amino acid sequences, 3D atomic structures, and resulting functions. This large-scale training allows ESM3 to predict patterns and design new proteins with specific functions. The model is available for non-commercial use through an API, and a smaller open version, ESM3-open, is accessible on GitHub under a non-commercial license.

Company Leadership

EvolutionaryScale was founded by Alexander Rives, Tom Secru, and Sal Candido, who are co-founders and led the former "AI protein team" at Meta. Alexander Rives serves as the CEO and chief scientist of the company.

Products and Services

EvolutionaryScale's ESM3 model has been applied to generate an entirely new fluorescent protein, similar to those found in glowing jellyfish and coral. This achievement highlights the potential of their AI model in accelerating scientific discoveries and drug development. The company offers both open and commercial versions of ESM3, catering to academics and pharmaceutical companies, respectively.

Responsible Development

EvolutionaryScale recognizes the importance of responsible AI development and has actively advocated for setting principles to govern the responsible use of AI in protein design. The company emphasizes open, safe, and ethical research practices while partnering with the scientific community to advance the frontiers of scientific discovery.

EvolutionaryScale

Company Summary

EvolutionaryScale is an artificial intelligence startup that focuses on using AI to generate novel proteins for scientific research. The company's ESM3 model is a "frontier model" for biology that can create proteins for use cases like drug discovery and materials science. The company was founded by Alexander Rives, Tom Secru, and Sal Candido, who previously worked on generative AI models for proteins while at Meta's AI research lab, FAIR, in 2019.

Funding

In June 2024, EvolutionaryScale announced it had raised $142 million in seed funding, led by ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Lux Capital. Amazon, NVentures (Nvidia's corporate venture arm), and angel investors also participated in the funding round.

Business Model

EvolutionaryScale plans to make money through a combination of partnerships, usage fees, and revenue sharing. For example, the company might work with pharmaceutical companies to integrate ESM3 into their workflows or revenue-share with researchers for breakthrough discoveries commercialized using ESM3.

Technology

The ESM3 model is trained on a large dataset of 2.78-3.8 billion proteins and can "reason over" the sequence, structure, and function of proteins, enabling it to generate new proteins. The model is available in three sizes: small, medium, and large, with the small model being open-sourced for non-commercial research.

Competition

Other companies working on generative AI-powered biology or LLMs for this field include InstaDeep (acquired by BioNTech), Profluent, and Google DeepMind's AlphaFold.

Employees

The company has approximately 20 employees as of June 2024.

Executive Officers and Board Members