China’s Nutshell Therapeutics has closed a tens-of-millions-of-US-dollars Series C1 round co-led by CITIC Capital and Decheng Capital, with participation from Fortune VC and Wuxi Capital Group, to accelerate iteration of its AI-plus-physics computational platform and advance core pipeline assets.

The company, one of China’s earliest AI-native biotechs tackling difficult-to-drug targets, has built AlloMatrix, a wet-lab-derived, standardised protein-conformation database claimed to be among the largest globally, and AlloStar, a proprietary AI-plus-physics framework that captures conformational dynamics, identifies hidden allosteric sites, characterises them, and drives generative small-molecule design, with a custom protein-specific force field, APSF, and generative modules AlloWaves and AlloLig built on diffusion and flow models.

The platform has produced nearly 20 internal programmes spanning transcription factors, translation factors, and receptors across oncology, CNS, autoimmune, and metabolic disease, with lead candidate Dalretapopt (NTS071), a p53 Y220C reactivator with picomolar allosteric agonism, now in international multicentre Phase I and approaching Phase II after early data showed efficacy at very low doses with favourable human pharmacokinetics. A second, globally leading programme targets NRF2 with a covalent allosteric molecular glue, with US-China Phase I filings planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.