Latent Labs, a biotech startup founded by former Google DeepMind scientist Simon Kohl, has launched with US$50 million in funding.

The company will develop generative AI models to optimize and design proteins for drug discovery and synthetic biology.

The funding includes a US$10 million seed round and a US$40 million series A round, co-led by Radical Ventures and Sofinnova Partners.

A significant portion of the funding in infrastructure and hiring.

Located in London and San Francisco, Latent Labs has a team of about 15 employees.

The company will not create therapeutic products itself but will collaborate with biotech and pharmaceutical companies, offering AI models or project-based partnerships to accelerate early-stage drug research.

The startup aims to reduce reliance on lab experiments by utilizing computational methods to program biology.