AI biotech startup Chai Discovery has secured USD 70 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures, with participation from OpenAI, Thrive Capital and DST Global Partners. The company's Chai-2 platform achieves 20% success rate in de novo antibody design — 200 times higher than traditional computational methods — by generating binders from target antigen inputs alone. Founder Matthew McPartlon likened the breakthrough to "having a master locksmith craft keys instead of searching through millions".

Chai Discovery will use the funds to expand its AI platform for previously undruggable targets. The company previously released open-source foundation model Chai-1 for molecular structure prediction and has accelerated antibody discovery timelines from 3 years to 2 weeks. Investors include veterans from OpenAI, Meta FAIR and Google X.

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