Lifebit startup raises $3m to 'revolutionise' the future of genomic data

Announced today (July 20), Lifebit, a system which generates and processes genomic data (genome and DNA data of an organism) in real time, has closed a $3m (£2.25m) seed funding round.

The round has been led by Pentech and Connect Ventures, with Beacon Capital and Tiny VC participating. Lifebit’s first product, Deploit - said to be the world’s first AI-powered genomic data platform - has been launched and is already being trialled across major pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Founded by Dr. Maria Chatzou and Dr. Pablo Prieto Barja in Cambridge last year (summer 2017), it was soon after selected to take part in Techstars, a tech accelerator programme. Following this, the $3m seed round was closed and the company moved to London in 2018.

Deploit is said to learn from the data it processes and the way in which researchers interact with it, offering an “unprecedented” level of automation, while integrating with all major cloud providers to offer a supposedly seamless user experience.

Lifebit’s CEO and co-founder, Dr. Maria Chatzou, commented on the product: “The problem these organisations face is no longer sequencing vast quantities of genomic data, but rather making sense of this data quickly and affordably.

“This requires new data analysis technologies, which is where Lifebit comes in. Our mission is to enable cloud-based real time genomic analysis at scale, anywhere, by anyone.”

Deploit is said to be the first step towards Lifebit’s vision in building a cloud-based cognitive system, reasoning about DNA data in the same way as humans.

The founders are using this investment to further develop Deploit, as well as expanding its engineering team with links from the likes of Google and Illumina.

Dr. Maria Chatzou believes the world is “on the brink” of a genomics revolution, which could be closely related to the earliest days of the personal computer, when the likes of Microsoft and Apple went on to reshape the tech industry.

She concluded: “We knew then that one day everyone would have at least one personal computer and it would change the way we live our lives.

“Today, we are entering an era where everyone will have their genome sequenced multiple times over their lifetime and every aspect of human existence from diagnostics and precision medicine to food security and the environment will change as a result.

“Lifebit intends to be at the heart of this wave of change.”

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