Aureka Biotechnologies Closes Tens of Millions of Dollars in Series A Funding to Accelerate AI-Powered Antibody Design and Innovative Pipeline R&D
A biotech company focused on generative AI-powered antibody drug development
Aureka Biotechnologies, a biotech company focused on generative antibody drug development, recently announced the completion of a tens-of-millions-of-dollars Series A financing round, co-led by Qiming Venture Partners. The proceeds will be used to advance its innovative pipeline into critical clinical stages, accelerate the development of its wet-dry closed-loop antibody design agent platform, and expand deep partnerships with global biopharmaceutical companies.
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Reconstructing the Paradigm of Antibody Drug Design with a Wet-Dry Closed-Loop Agent Platform
Aureka Biotechnologies is building a self-evolving antibody design agent, combining high-throughput single-cell functional screening with an intracellular yeast automated directed evolution platform to fundamentally transform how functional data is generated. This creates a high-throughput, high-content experimental data flywheel for the agent, forming differentiated antibody discovery and optimization capabilities to efficiently develop First-in-Class and Best-in-Class antibody drug pipelines.
Aureka continuously optimizes the functional dimensions, phenotypic precision, and throughput of its data acquisition, building an antibody design agent capable of handling multi-dimensional, multi-objective tasks that iterates autonomously — constantly expanding the model's generalization boundaries and directed optimization capabilities across complex targets, mechanisms, and indications. The company has made targeted deployments in multiple high-value, high-challenge domains including epitope-specific targeting antibodies, multi-specific antibodies, internalizing antibodies, and pH-switch antibodies, enabling agent-designed molecules to achieve greater safety and superior efficacy, ultimately delivering better therapeutic effects and differentiated clinical advantages.
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Advancing Technical Validation and Commercial Translation in Parallel
On technical validation and commercial partnership, Aureka has established substantive collaborations with several major European and American pharmaceutical companies, launching joint projects around complex targets and functional mechanisms, and demonstrating the platform's substantial advantages over traditional platforms in these high-value application scenarios.
At the same time, the company is advancing multiple proprietary pipelines, with a strategic focus on autoimmune and metabolic diseases — therapeutic areas with significant unmet medical needs — with several projects already entering critical PCC or Pre-IND stages.
Over the past two years, Aureka has achieved commercial revenue in the tens of millions of dollars, and continues to expand medium- to long-term pipeline co-development and joint development opportunities.
Dr. Weian Zhao, Founder and CEO of Aureka Biotechnologies, said: "We believe antibody drugs are not merely to be 'discovered,' but can be designed. Truly unleashing the potential of autonomous agents lies not in auxiliary analysis, but in enabling them to participate in decision-making, drive design, and guide experiments — achieving iterative closed loops in combination with high-throughput experimental platforms. What we aim to build is not just an algorithmic model, but a continuously evolving, proactively creative world model for antibody design."
William Hu, Managing Partner at Qiming Venture Partners, said: "Through closed-loop innovation combining data and experimentation, Aureka has built an efficient, scalable drug discovery system. The team brings together both scientific and industry experience, offering an entirely new path for accelerating and reducing costs in future macromolecule R&D. We hope Aureka will continue to deepen its technology and develop the new infrastructure for the future biopharmaceutical industry."
This financing round was co-led by 5Y Capital and Qiming Venture Partners, with continued investment from existing shareholder Nueli Capital, and participation from Agentic Ventures and other institutions.
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Founded in 2006, Qiming Venture Partners currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total committed capital reaching $9.5 billion. Since its inception, the firm has focused on investing in outstanding early- and growth-stage companies in Technology and Healthcare innovation.
To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have listed on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns.
Many companies in Qiming's portfolio have grown into the most influential players in their respective fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ:BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE:ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), Hesai Technology (NASDAQ:HSAI, 02525.HK), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD, 00800.HK), HyperStrong (688411.SH), Insta360 (688775.SH), Unisound (09678.HK), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ:SDGR), MicroPort EP MedTech (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), Amoy Diagnostics (300685.SZ), SinoCellTech (688520.SH), AHBIO, Yuanxin Technology, Insilico Medicine, MediLink Therapeutics, LaNova Medicines, Zhipu AI, StepFun, Biren Technology, and others.