{"id":5934,"date":"2026-01-14T00:19:52","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/14\/dcvc-nvidia-back-proximas-us80-million-bet-on-ai-drug-discovery\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T00:19:52","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T00:19:52","slug":"dcvc-nvidia-back-proximas-us80-million-bet-on-ai-drug-discovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/14\/dcvc-nvidia-back-proximas-us80-million-bet-on-ai-drug-discovery\/","title":{"rendered":"DCVC, NVIDIA Back Proxima\u2019s US$80 Million Bet on AI Drug Discovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence (AI) biotech startup Proxima has raised US$80 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of drugs that modulate protein-to-protein interactions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The financing round was led by Data Collective Venture Capital (DCVC), with participation from NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) venture arm, as well as Roivant Sciences (NASDAQ:ROIV), Braidwell and other strategic and institutional investors.<\/p>\n

Alongside the funding, the company announced in a Tuesday (January 13) press release that it has rebranded from VantAI to Proxima to reflect its focus on proximity-based therapeutics. These medicines aim to modulate interactions between proteins rather than simply switching a single protein on or off, an approach that researchers believe could open the door to treating diseases that have historically been difficult to address with conventional drugs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Proximity-based drugs include modalities such as molecular glues and PROTACs, which have gained attention in recent years for their potential to target so-called \u201cundruggable\u201d proteins.<\/p>\n

Despite their promise, progress in the field has been slowed by limited structural data and challenges in designing compounds that reliably influence protein-protein interactions.<\/p>\n

\u201cProximity-based medicines represent one of the most powerful new ways to treat disease, but progress has been constrained by a lack of structural data and accurate design tools,\u201d said Zachary Carpenter, Proxima’s co-founder and CEO. He emphasized the firm’s goal of making this type of therapy more widely accessible for those in need. <\/p>\n

Protein-protein interactions govern nearly all biological processes, yet only a small fraction of these interactions have been structurally characterized. Through its NeoLink data-generation technology, Proxima is aiming to create a data foundation that would support rational drug design across a wide range of proximity-based therapeutic approaches.<\/p>\n

This data is then paired with Proxima\u2019s Neo series of AI models, which enable end-to-end discovery and development of proximity-modulating small molecules to improve safety profiles and shorten development timelines.<\/p>\n

Proxima has already established partnerships with major pharmal players, including Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) and Blueprint Medicines, which was acquired by Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) last year.<\/p>\n

According to the company, multiple co-developed programs with partners are advancing toward the clinic, with the first expected to enter clinical trials in 2026.<\/p>\n

Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on investingnews.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence (AI) biotech startup Proxima has raised US$80 million in seed funding to accelerate the development of drugs that modulate protein-to-protein interactions. The financing round was led by Data Collective Venture Capital (DCVC), with participation from NVIDIA’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) venture arm, as well as Roivant Sciences (NASDAQ:ROIV), Braidwell and other strategic and institutional investors. Alongside…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victoryinfinance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}