🅰 $600m raise for Isomorphic Labs and $450m for SandboxAQ - Asymmetrix Newsletter #61
Alphabet-related AI-driven Data & Analytics businesses raise $1.1bn last week
One long insight this week, covering funding rounds for three Data & Analytics businesses - all with a link to Google-owner Alphabet - spanning Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Materials Science and Navigation:
$600m for Isomorphic Labs;
$450m for SandboxAQ at a $5.75bn valuation;
$33m for LightSource.
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Acquisition and Investment activity - March 31 - April 04, 2025
Despite Trump’s tariffs, last week was relatively busy. 14 fundraising rounds were announced, with a total estimated EV of $13.4bn. There were 5 (albeit relatively small) acquisitions, totalling just $80m in EV.
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Alphabet - mother of AI platforms
The wave of vertical focused AI-powered Data & Analytics platforms continues.
Of the 14 investment rounds Asymmetrix tracked last week, 8 of the businesses were AI-driven.
Most noteworthy were two Alphabet spinouts that raised enormous rounds: Isomorphic Labs and SandboxAQ.
Isomorphic Labs builds on DeepMind's AlphaFold technology, which predicts protein structures, facilitating the identification of new drug targets. Isomorphic focuses on selling into pharmaceutical firms seeking to accelerate drug discovery.
SandboxAQ sells a similar product into the same market, but also has a materials science product, an aviation navigation product which doesn’t rely on GIS, and a cardiograph which does not rely on EKG technology.
Isomorphic Labs has caught everyone’s attention in part because it was founded by Sir Demis Hassabis, founder of DeepMind, the AI startup acquired by Google in 2014 three years after it launched for what then seemed like a large amount: $500m+.
Now that number is small potatoes: Isomorphic raised $600m last week at an undisclosed valuation that we can assume is probably in the range of $3.5bn-$5bn.
Interestingly, although Alphabet and its venture arm, GV, are reinvesting in a business which span out of DeepMind itself, Thrive Capital, Josh Kushner’s business, has come in alongside them.
Thrive put $1.3bn into OpenAI’s $7bn fundraise last year’s, and also have significant stakes in Databricks, Anduril and Stripe.
SandboxAQ has an equally heavyweight set of investors in their most recent $450m Series E round, which values the business at $5.75bn.
Google, which SandboxAQ span out of in 2022, has reinvested, alongside a range of well-known parties, including Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, and NVIDIA.
Much like Thrive, NVIDIA has a range of blue-chip investments in tech. Like Thrive, they’re also backers of OpenAI, and they’re also in Perplexity and xAI (which was combined with X last week in a deal which valued X at for $33bn and xAI at $80bn). NVIDIA’s list of investments is long - take a look at a summary in TechCrunch if you want to go down the rabbithole.
One final Alphabet-related deal last week.
Bain Capital Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners led a $33m round in LightSource, a supply chain data platform whose founders met at Alphabet. The AI-driven platform looks like it could be useful for all those companies who now find that they need to reroute their supply chains to minimise exposure to President Trump’s new tariffs.
Interesting Content
The CEO of LexisNexis thinks AI could make lawyers more expensive — to the tune of $10,000 an hour - Business Insider
Global spending on financial market data totals a record $44.3bn in 2024, rising 6.4%, driven by advanced technology - Burton Taylor
“Cops, AI, drug companies”: Who wants to buy your DNA from 23andme?- Salon
📧 If we have missed your deal, or you would like to talk, please email us at a.boden@asymmetrix.info.