System1 Biosciences is a technology company.
System1 Biosciences has raised $25.0M across 1 funding round.
System1 Biosciences has raised $25.0M in total across 1 funding round.
System1 Biosciences has raised $25.0M in total across 1 funding round.
System1 Biosciences's investors include Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, Dragoneer Investment Group, Sangeen Zeb, Modern Venture Partners, Operator Collective, Owl Rock Capital Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Wasabi Ventures, Catherine Lu.
System1 Biosciences is a San Francisco-based biotechnology company founded in 2017 that develops novel drugs for complex neurological and psychiatric disorders like epilepsy, autism, and schizophrenia using AI-driven phenotypic screening on patient-derived cerebral organoids.[1][2][3] The company builds a technology platform called Orca, which integrates stem cell-derived mini-brains (organoids), robotic automation, systems neuroscience, machine learning, and advanced analytics to create "deep phenotypes"—detailed disease characterizations that reveal novel therapeutic targets and drug combinations unattainable with traditional methods.[3][4][6] It serves patients and pharma partners underserved by conventional target-based screening, solving the high failure rates in neurotherapeutics discovery by scaling multimodal data collection from tens of thousands of organoids.[2][4][6] With $30 million raised, including a $25 million Series A in 2018 co-led by CRV and Pfizer Ventures, System1 demonstrates strong early momentum in preclinical drug discovery.[3][4]
System1 Biosciences emerged in 2017 from the need to address failures in traditional drug discovery for brain diseases, combining expertise in stem cell biology, automation, and AI.[2][6] Key leaders include Chief Scientific Officer Zheng Li, alongside a multidisciplinary team of PhD scientists in organoids and neurobiology, software/automation engineers, and computational neuroscientists/machine learning experts who built the Orca platform.[2][6] The idea stemmed from scaling patient-derived cerebral organoids—3D mini-brain models from diseased stem cells—to enable high-throughput phenotyping, with early traction via robotic systems for massive data generation and AWS-enabled cloud analytics for drug insights.[3][4][6] A pivotal moment was the 2018 $25 million Series A, bringing total funding to $30 million and adding board members like George Zachary (CRV) and Margi McLoughlin (Pfizer Ventures), fueling epilepsy, autism, and schizophrenia programs.[3][4]
System1 rides the convergence of organoid tech, AI, and automation in biotech, accelerating neurotherapeutics amid a crisis where traditional methods fail for 90%+ of brain disorders.[1][3][4] Timing aligns with advances in patient-specific stem cells and scalable robotics post-2010s, amplified by cloud ML for handling petabyte-scale organoid data.[6] Market forces favor it: rising neuro disease prevalence (e.g., autism/epilepsy), pharma's push for better preclinical models, and investor interest in AI-bio platforms, as seen in its Pfizer/CRV backing.[3][4] System1 influences the ecosystem by validating organoids for drug discovery, potentially lowering clinical failure rates and inspiring hybrid bio-AI tools across pharma.[3][6]
System1 is poised to advance its pipeline into clinical stages, leveraging Orca for lead optimization in epilepsy/autism/schizophrenia, with potential partnerships for polypharma therapies.[3][4] Trends like AI-augmented biology, single-cell multi-omics, and regulatory nods for organoids will propel growth, possibly yielding first IND filings by late 2020s.[6] Its influence may expand via platform licensing, bridging biotech's discovery gap and redefining neuro drug R&D—echoing its mission to deliver where others have failed.[1][2]
System1 Biosciences has raised $25.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $25.0M Series A in September 2018.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 1, 2018 | $25.0M Series A | Altimeter Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, Dragoneer Investment Group, Sangeen Zeb, Modern Venture Partners, Operator Collective, Owl Rock Capital Partners, Sutter Hill Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Wasabi Ventures, Catherine Lu |