We’re excited to share that we’ve invested in Phylo, a Silicon Valley startup building AI tools to accelerate drug discovery. Founded by Stanford researchers across computer science and biology, Phylo is developing an intelligent platform that automates key steps of the scientific workflow.
We are excited to share that we have invested in Phylo, a Silicon Valley startup developing an AI agent for drug discovery.
Phylo is founded by a world-class team of Stanford PhD students and professors across computer science, biology, and AI, including Kexin Huang, Yuanhao Qu, Serena Zhang, Professor Jure Leskovec, Le Cong, and Malay Gandhi. Their work sits at the intersection of advanced machine learning and life sciences, bringing together deep academic expertise and real-world technological impact.
Scientists in life sciences spend countless hours manually running experiments, processing data, and iterating on hypotheses. Phylo is building the first agentic IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for scientists, designed to automate key steps of the research workflow and accelerate drug discovery.
Drug discovery is slow, expensive, and constrained by human bandwidth. AI agents can dramatically shorten research cycles and unlock new scientific approaches. Phylo and the founding team are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation. This investment also reflects something we deeply value at Silicon Gardens: supporting international teams building in the US, especially when there’s a meaningful connection back to our region. With Professor Jure Leskovec on the founding team, Phylo carries a familiar CEE touch within a world-class Silicon Valley project.
We are participating in Phylo’s $13M seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Menlo Ventures, alongside a select group of global investors.
Welcome to the Gardens, Phylo! 🌱
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