Anew Labs Raises $290M for AI Drug Discovery

Anew Labs, the artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery venture spun out from Chinese tech giant ByteDance, has successfully closed a substantial $290 million funding round. This significant capital infusion positions the Shanghai-headquartered company, with additional operations in Singapore and San Jose, California, at a $1.5 billion valuation. ByteDance will maintain a majority ownership, holding a 56% stake following the transaction.

The substantial investment underscores the escalating investor confidence in AI's transformative potential within the pharmaceutical sector. Venture funding for AI drug discovery initiatives surpassed $11 billion in 2025, reflecting a robust growth trajectory. Anew Labs enters this competitive arena with a sophisticated technological foundation, building upon its open-sourced structure-prediction model, Protenix, which rivals Google DeepMind's AlphaFold3. The company further leverages PXDesign for de novo protein binder design and AnewOmni, a generative framework trained on extensive biomolecular complex data.

Anew Labs is actively advancing its internal pipeline, currently featuring four drug candidates. Notably, one program targets autoimmune diseases by developing a small molecule inhibitor designed to simultaneously block three IL-17 protein complexes. This approach tackles a class of protein-protein interactions previously deemed “undruggable” due to their large, flat binding surfaces, a significant hurdle for conventional therapeutics. The company's commitment to innovation was highlighted by its head of biology, Chris Li, who presented this candidate at a major immunology conference.

The funding round was spearheaded by prominent venture capital firms, with HSG (formerly Sequoia China), IDG Capital, and Hillhouse Investment acting as co-leads. Further participation came from co-lead investor 5Y Capital, alongside Gaorong Ventures, Primavera Venture Partners, and Boyu Capital. Strategic backing was provided by SBP Group, and the round also included investment from the state-backed Shanghai Future Industries Fund. The involvement of IDG Capital is particularly noteworthy given the background of Anew Labs' CEO, Liu Kai, who previously spent seven years as a venture investor at IDG Capital and Fire Stone Investment.

The spin-off from ByteDance, which originated from an internal AI4S (AI for Science) team established in 2021, reflects a strategic decision to operate with distinct industry logic and management principles suited for drug discovery. Anew Labs' leadership team comprises a blend of AI algorithm specialists and seasoned pharmaceutical industry veterans, including notable scientific advisors such as Liu Yongjun, former president of Innovent Biologics, and Ji Ma, a former principal scientist at Amgen.

Anew Labs joins a rapidly expanding cohort of AI-native drug discovery companies attracting significant capital. Competitors like Isomorphic Labs, backed by Google DeepMind, have raised substantial sums, while Xaira Therapeutics launched with a $1 billion war chest. Hong Kong-listed Insilico Medicine, with its integrated Pharma.AI platform, serves as another benchmark, demonstrating the potential for AI-driven drug pipelines to reach public markets. Anew Labs' strategy of developing its own candidates, rather than solely relying on partnerships, sets it apart in this dynamic and capital-intensive field.