--- title: Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences raises $215M to automate... description: Kevin Weil, former head of OpenAI's science unit, launched a new startup called Warp Sciences. It raised $215M in a Series A at an $865M valuation, led by... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/kevin-weil-s-warp-sciences-raises-215m-to-automate-drug-development-lab-work-xzrw1jd4b twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences raises $215M to automate drug-development lab work | daily.dev og:description: Kevin Weil, former head of OpenAI's science unit, launched a new startup called Warp Sciences. It raised $215M in a Series A at an $865M valuation, led by... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/kevin-weil-s-warp-sciences-raises-215m-to-automate-drug-development-lab-work-xzrw1jd4b og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/XZRw1jD4B.png og:image:alt: Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences raises $215M to automate drug-development lab work 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. # Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences raises $215M to automate drug-development lab work **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Kevin Weil, former head of OpenAI's science unit, launched a new startup called Warp Sciences. It raised $215M in a Series A at an $865M valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also participating. Warp wants to build a fully automated US lab for drug-development work that American companies now largely outsource to Chinese firms like WuXi AppTec. The team of about 20 has bought robotic arms and AI chips. Chemists will wear cameras and pressure-sensing gloves so the system learns from how experienced people handle the bench. ## Content Kevin Weil, who used to run science at OpenAI, has launched Warp Sciences with $215 million in funding at an $865 million valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round. IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also put money in. The announcement was described as a Series A. The pitch is a fully automated US lab for wet-lab chemistry in drug development. Much of that work, especially the labor-intensive synthesis of molecules, is currently outsourced to contract firms in China such as WuXi AppTec. Weil wants to bring it back to the US and take geopolitical supply-chain risk out of the drug pipeline. The team is small, roughly 20 people. They have already bought robotic arms and AI chips. To get the robots to do real bench work, human chemists will wear cameras and pressure-sensing gloves while they work. That footage and sensor data becomes training data for Warp's own AI models. I like that the company is starting from the unglamorous part of drug discovery. Models that propose molecules get the headlines, but someone still has to make and test them, and that someone is mostly overseas right now. Whether robots trained on glove data can match a good chemist's hands is the open question, and a 20-person team has a lot to prove. ## Questions this post answers ### How much funding did Kevin Weil's Warp Sciences raise and at what valuation? Warp Sciences raised $215 million in a Series A round at an $865 million valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also participating. The company, founded by former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil, has about 20 employees and aims to build a fully automated US drug-development lab using robotic arms and AI chips. _Track funding rounds like this one shaping AI-driven lab automation on daily.dev._ ### How is Warp Sciences training its AI models to automate drug-development lab work? Chemists wear cameras and pressure-sensing gloves while performing lab work, letting Warp Sciences' AI models learn from how experienced people handle the bench. The goal is a fully automated lab that replaces drug-development work American companies currently outsource to Chinese firms such as WuXi AppTec. _Follow how robotics and AI training methods like this reshape lab work on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI is spitting out more potential drugs than ever. 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Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital also participating. The company, founded by former OpenAI science lead Kevin Weil, has about 20 employees and aims to build a fully automated US drug-development lab using robotic arms and AI chips. Track funding rounds like this one shaping AI-driven lab automation on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"How is Warp Sciences training its AI models to automate drug-development lab work?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Chemists wear cameras and pressure-sensing gloves while performing lab work, letting Warp Sciences' AI models learn from how experienced people handle the bench. The goal is a fully automated lab that replaces drug-development work American companies currently outsource to Chinese firms such as WuXi AppTec. Follow how robotics and AI training methods like this reshape lab work on daily.dev."}}]} ```