Convoke Secures $8.6 Million Seed Funding to Advance AI in Biopharma

San Francisco, CA – Convoke, a company focused on developing AI tools for the biopharmaceutical industry, has successfully closed an $8.6 million seed financing round. The funding was led by prominent venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Dimension Capital, with additional participation from ACME, Comma Capital, Liquid2V, Not Boring Capital, AudaciousHQ, and Lux Capital, alongside various leaders in artificial intelligence and biotechnology. The company announced its achievement on social media, stating: > "We've raised $8.6m to build leading AI tools for the biopharma industry! Our seed financing was led by @kleinerperkins and @_DimensionCap, with participation from @ACME, @CommaCapital, @Liquid2V, @notboringco, @AudaciousHQ, @Lux_Capital, and leaders in AI and biotechnology."

Convoke aims to revolutionize drug development by offering an AI-native operating system designed to streamline processes and enhance efficiency within the biopharma sector. The platform transforms raw data into actionable deliverables, addressing significant bottlenecks in the journey from concept to market. This investment underscores a growing industry need for accelerated development cycles and reduced operational inefficiencies.

Alex Telford, CEO and co-founder of Convoke, highlighted the substantial time lost to manual, repetitive tasks that the company's AI-based approach seeks to automate. He stated that the goal is to "build software that applies recent advances in AI to unlock capacity and increase the 'clock speed' of biopharma organizations." The company's platform acts as an "information factory," centralizing disparate data sources and enabling customized automation workflows.

The biopharmaceutical industry faces immense pressure to accelerate the delivery of new therapies amidst a challenging capital market and evolving regulatory landscape. New drugs reportedly spend approximately 45% of their development time on planning and preparation, with each day of delay potentially costing $500,000 in lost sales. Convoke's solutions are designed to help companies navigate these complexities by codifying decision-making and automating critical functions.

Leigh Marie Braswell, Partner at Kleiner Perkins, emphasized Convoke's deep domain expertise and technical ambition, noting that their platform has already demonstrated its ability to unlock capabilities previously unimaginable for biopharma teams. Nan Li, Managing Partner at Dimension, added that Convoke's agentic software allows companies to shift towards a model where one person manages software systems, reducing reliance on sheer headcount and manual workflows. This strategic funding positions Convoke to further develop its technology and expand its reach, contributing to the vision of "self-driving biopharma organizations" that can bring life-saving treatments to patients faster.