The Rise of Automation in Life Sciences

Automation is increasingly prevalent across all organizational workflows, and a new startup is focusing its efforts on the life sciences industry. Artificial, a company developing a software platform designed to aid – and in some instances, fully automate – research and development processes within laboratories, has secured $21.5 million in funding.

Funding and Future Plans

The newly acquired capital will be allocated towards continued software development and expansion of its functionalities. Furthermore, Artificial intends to bolster its team through strategic hiring and invest in business development initiatives, as stated by CEO and co-founder David Fuller.

The company already boasts a growing clientele, including prominent organizations like Thermo Fisher and Beam Therapeutics, who are utilizing Artificial’s software both directly and through partnerships for their own customer base.

aLab Suite: Orchestrating Lab Work

Artificial’s core offering, known as aLab Suite, is capable of both orchestrating and managing robotic systems commonly employed in laboratories. It also provides assistance to scientists as they perform tasks manually.

“Our fundamental goal is to expedite the pace of discovery within laboratory settings,” Fuller explained. He posits that the integration of artificial intelligence to enhance laboratory operations is significantly overdue.

“A digital revolution is essential to modernize the operational methods of labs that have remained largely unchanged for the past two decades.”

Investment Details and Key Players

This Series A funding round is spearheaded by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, functioning as both a financial and strategic investor. Playground Global and AME Cloud Ventures also participated in the investment.

Playground Global, co-founded by former Google executive and Android co-creator Andy Rubin (who is no longer affiliated with the firm), has a strong focus on robotics and life sciences. They previously led Artificial’s seed funding round, representing the company’s first and only prior investment.

The valuation of Artificial with this funding round has not been disclosed.

The Team Behind Artificial

David Fuller brings extensive experience in robotics, particularly in industrial automation. Prior to establishing Artificial in 2019, he served as CTO at Kuka, a German robotics manufacturer. Before that, Fuller dedicated 20 years to National Instruments, a leading provider of instrumentation, test equipment, and industrial software.

Co-founder Nikhita Singh contributes valuable insights into integrating robotics into traditionally analogue environments. Her background includes human-robot interaction research at the MIT Media Lab, alongside experience at Palantir and robotics work at Berkeley.

Addressing a Market Gap

Fuller identified a significant opportunity to apply automation – proven effective in industrial settings – to the realm of life sciences. This aims to improve scientists’ ability to track their work and automate repetitive tasks.

This need is particularly acute in the current global health landscape, where pandemic-related restrictions have limited in-person lab operations and increased reliance on automated systems for data analysis and task execution.

The Need for Unified Lab Platforms

While advancements in robotics, such as robotic arms, have addressed precision requirements, a lack of comprehensive platforms to integrate and “orchestrate” this hardware has persisted. Furthermore, linking data from robotic systems with human-performed tasks has remained a challenge.

Artificial estimates that approximately $10 billion is spent annually on lab informatics and automation software, yet unified data models and overarching platforms are currently absent, hindering full modernization.

The Lab as a Hybrid Environment

Fuller describes a laboratory as a combination of advanced analytical instrumentation and robotic systems for liquid handling. “Essentially, a lab functions much like a kitchen,” he stated, “with the primary operation being the mixing of liquids.”

However, labs also share characteristics with factories, involving the movement of pipettes and liquids through plates via robotic systems. “This material flow resembles classic robotics,” Fuller explained, highlighting the potential for automation software application.

Augmenting, Not Replacing, Human Expertise

The goal is not to eliminate human involvement, but rather to enhance scientists’ capabilities. Even in the highly automated automotive industry, approximately 6% of work is still performed by humans.

Fuller estimates that 60% of lab work is currently done by humans, acknowledging the complexity of fully replacing scientists – whom he describes as “artists” – at this time.

“Our solution enhances human activity and automates routine tasks,” Fuller clarified. “This approach distinguishes us from traditional automation solutions.”

A Growing Landscape of AI-Driven Science Startups

Several startups are emerging, applying artificial intelligence and big data analytics to the scientific world. Examples include Turing, automating lab work for CPG companies, and Paige, utilizing AI to improve cancer diagnosis and pathology.

Synergy with Microsoft

The investment from Microsoft presents opportunities for platform development, particularly in data handling and augmented reality applications.

“We foresee significant technical synergy,” Fuller said. “Lab personnel already wear glasses, and we believe this presents a long-term use case.”

Artificial is exploring the use of Microsoft’s HoloLens to guide technicians, ensuring consistent work execution by comparing physical actions to a “digital twin” of the lab, containing data on supplies and next steps.

M12’s Perspective on the Opportunity

“Biology labs today are light- to semi-automated—the same state they were in when I started my academic research and biopharmaceutical career over 20 years ago. Most labs operate more like test kitchens rather than factories,” stated Dr. Kouki Harasaki, an investor at M12.

“Artificial’s aLab Suite is especially exciting to us because it is uniquely positioned to automate the masses: it’s accessible, low code, easy to use, highly configurable, and interoperable with common lab hardware and software. Most importantly, it enables Biopharma and SynBio labs to achieve the crowning glory of workflow automation: flexibility at scale.”

Harasaki and Peter Barratt, a founder and general partner at Playground Global, will join Artificial’s board of directors.

“It’s become even more clear as we continue to battle the pandemic that we need to take a scalable, reproducible approach to running our labs, rather than the artisanal, error-prone methods we employ today,” Barrett said. “The aLab Suite that Artificial has pioneered will allow us to accelerate the breakthrough treatments of tomorrow and ensure our best and brightest scientists are working on challenging problems, not manual labor.”