Zlatko Jončev

Zlatko Jončev is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of b-12 Labs, a Y Combinator-backed startup developing artificial intelligence agents for automated chemistry workflows. Prior to launching the company, he spent more than 10 years as an automation chemist at Roche and served as an AI researcher at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He established b-12 Labs alongside co-founder Andres Bran to commercialize research on autonomous laboratory systems, targeting a $9 billion market for accelerated drug discovery infrastructure. The firm builds full-stack software that integrates large language models with chemical robotics from manufacturers like Chemspeed to autonomously plan and execute complex molecular synthesis within the global biotechnology sector. Jončev currently focuses on deploying these autonomous laboratory systems to reduce pharmaceutical research and development timelines from several years to a few months.