The Collision of AI and Pharmaceuticals: Galaxy Pharma Tech Raises Nearly $10 Million in Funding | Light Moments

Recently, Galixir announced the completion of a nearly $10 million Pre-A funding round. The round was co-led by Source Code Capital and DCM, with 5Y Capital participating. Gaorong Capital, the lead investor in the company's angel round, continued to increase its stake.

In response, Xutian Jing, Vice President of 5Y Capital, stated: "Drug discovery is one of the vertical industries best suited for artificial intelligence to leverage its strengths and generate commercial impact. Not only because target proteins and drug molecules are highly structured chemical entities that naturally align with AI's computational logic, but also because the large-scale generation of new druggable molecules brings to the entire industry not just efficiency gains, but a systematic creation of new supply — thereby driving the reshaping of the industry's value chain and its digital transformation.

Schrödinger's performance on Nasdaq further proves global investors' recognition of the platform-enabled drug R&D business model. In China, a massive market in urgent need of pharmaceutical innovation, innovative companies with AI platform-based drug discovery technology are especially well-positioned for success.

Galixir's AI capabilities and understanding of vertical industry problems have exceeded our expectations for a startup, and we believe it will achieve deep industry and commercial value in the future."

Founded in 2019, Galixir is an AI-powered solutions provider for drug discovery. The company is dedicated to combining cutting-edge artificial intelligence with pharmaceutical, chemical, and biological technologies to build an AI drug discovery platform that helps scientists explore broader druggable space, reduce R&D costs, and shorten drug development timelines.

According to Nature research data, developing a new drug from project initiation to regulatory approval takes an average of 10–15 years and nearly $3 billion in R&D costs — a figure that continues to rise year by year.

Meanwhile, Deloitte research shows that large biopharmaceutical companies' new drug R&D return on investment has fallen to a nine-year low of just 1.9%.

For large pharmaceutical companies with annual R&D expenditures exceeding $10 billion, such heavy investment does not necessarily yield commensurate returns. This decline in R&D returns has, in turn, accelerated the division of labor between large pharmaceutical companies and R&D-focused technology firms.

As traditional drug development methods continue to face dual bottlenecks of cost and success rate, an increasing number of scientists are turning to artificial intelligence — a technology that has gradually gained prominence in recent years — hoping it will bring fresh inspiration to scientific discovery.

Against this industry backdrop, Galixir, committed to AI-empowered drug discovery, has proposed corresponding solutions and completed two consecutive funding rounds — angel and Pre-A — within just six months, raising over $10 million in total.

"Based on artificial intelligence technology, clients can use deep learning models to learn from datasets. After training, these models can automatically complete molecular design, synthesis design, drug property prediction, and optimization — truly reducing client burden and improving returns," said Dr. Chengtai Li, Founder & CEO.

Currently, Galixir has completed the development of multiple drug discovery modules, including retrosynthetic reaction prediction, drug screening, and molecular design. It has delivered design proposals for several clients and become a strategic partner to well-known domestic pharmaceutical companies, working with industry experts to deeply explore AI applications in drug R&D.

Notably, the company has also published multiple influential academic papers at top international AI conferences including ICML and NeurIPS.

Today, Galixir has assembled world-class talent in artificial intelligence, chemistry, biology, and other fields. Core team members come from top domestic and international universities including MIT, Yale University, Tsinghua University, and Peking University, as well as major internet companies and multinational pharmaceutical firms.

Galixir Founder & CEO Dr. Chengtai Li graduated from Tsinghua University's Yao Class for his undergraduate studies, then earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT. He has published multiple papers at top AI conferences and is one of the leading scholars in the AI + chemistry interdisciplinary field.

Dr. Chengtai Li, Founder and CEO of Galixir

The company's other expert advisory team consists of senior professors and scholars from top universities and research institutions including MIT, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Fudan University.

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5Y Capital is one of China's earliest venture capital firms focused on early-stage investing, currently managing both USD and RMB funds with assets under management totaling several billion dollars. Its limited partners include internationally renowned sovereign wealth funds, family offices, fund-of-funds, and university endowments.

Over nearly two decades of working together, 5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires founders who are willing to go it alone, sharing their exceptional vision and providing them with our insights, industry experience, and comprehensive operational support — from the spiritual to the practical — throughout their entrepreneurial journey.

5Y Capital's successful investments include Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU), Trip.com Group (NASDAQ: CTRP), The9 (NASDAQ: NCTY), China Distance Education (NYSE: DL), Focus Media (SZ: 002027), Xunlei (NASDAQ: XNET), Phoenix New Media (NYSE: FENG), UCWeb (Alibaba, NYSE: BABA), JOYY (NASDAQ: YY), Didi (DiDi), Musical.ly (ByteDance), NYSE: ZEPP, TAL Education (NYSE: ONE), Huya (NYSE: HUYA), Xiaomi (HK: 0181), Viomi (NASDAQ: VIOT), Kingsoft Office (688111.SH), Lizhi (NASDAQ: LIZI.US), and Agora (NASDAQ: API). The portfolio also includes rapidly growing companies such as Kuaishou, WeDoctor, SenseTime, Xpeng Motors, Souche, Horizon Robotics, Bigo, Aihuishou, Xiaozhu, Maimai, Smartmi, Pony.AI, and Keep.