--- title: Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology... description: Astromech, a Dallas startup founded by Ben Lamm and George Church (the pair behind Colossal Biosciences), raised $20mn at a $3.8bn valuation to build AI models... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology breaks | daily.dev og:description: Astromech, a Dallas startup founded by Ben Lamm and George Church (the pair behind Colossal Biosciences), raised $20mn at a $3.8bn valuation to build AI models... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/bt0So2Z4q.png og:image:alt: Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology breaks og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology breaks **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 5 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Astromech, a Dallas startup founded by Ben Lamm and George Church (the pair behind Colossal Biosciences), raised $20mn at a $3.8bn valuation to build AI models that forecast biological change using 3.8 billion years of evolutionary data. The platform reconstructs ancestral regulatory states (not just protein sequences) via a Bayesian framework to predict where genomes or populations are headed, where they will break, and which regulatory circuits drive change. Its only public results are retrospective: mapping 46 longevity genes across species like bowhead whales and Tasmanian devils, and an unpublished internal claim of a 100x speedup in tree-inference versus maximum-likelihood methods. No prospective validation, partner pilots, or customers have been announced, and the $60mn total raised is roughly 63 times smaller than the valuation. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Robot software startup FieldAI is set to raise $700M at a $10B valuation](https://daily.dev/posts/robot-software-startup-fieldai-is-set-to-raise-700m-at-a-10b-valuation-l8ujkwngm) · The Next Web · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI is spitting out more potential drugs than ever. This start-up wants to figure out which ones matter.](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-is-spitting-out-more-potential-drugs-than-ever-this-start-up-wants-to-figure-out-which-ones-matt-usqozoajm) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning), [#venture-capital](https://daily.dev/tags/venture-capital), [#biotech](https://daily.dev/tags/biotech) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology breaks","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q"},"datePublished":"2026-08-21T17:05:34.612Z","dateModified":"2026-08-21T17:16:46.412Z","description":"Astromech, a Dallas startup founded by Ben Lamm and George Church (the pair behind Colossal Biosciences), raised $20mn at a $3.8bn valuation to build AI models...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c14d9d242818a84d551fed2e60e04ccd?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/c14d9d242818a84d551fed2e60e04ccd?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/astromech-raised-20mn-at-3-8bn-to-forecast-how-biology-breaks-bt0so2z4q","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"machine-learning,venture-capital,biotech","timeRequired":"PT5M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Astromech raised $20mn at $3.8bn to forecast how biology breaks"}]} ```