Lemna Bio Received CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick to Redefine Drug Discovery
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EPFL spin-off Lemna Bio has raised CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick to develop its physics-driven AI platform, which makes biomolecular interactions more predictable, explainable, and reliable. The technology helps pharmaceutical companies identify better disease targets and design more effective therapies.
Drug discovery today faces decade-long timelines, soaring costs, and a 90% clinical failure rate — with up to 50% of failures caused by flawed biological assumptions, such as selecting the wrong target. Current tools struggle to capture biological complexity and often fail to deliver in therapeutic settings.
Lemna Bio offers a new paradigm: its AI models interactions from the atomic scale to entire biological networks and designs probes to test them. This approach enables pharma and biotech partners to de-risk biology early, reduce reliance on ineffective animal models, and accelerate the development of urgently needed therapies.
The company operates in the fast-growing AI for drug discovery market, which is expanding by nearly 30% annually and projected to reach USD 20 billion by 2030. This growth opens opportunities for Lemna Bio to bring its predictive models and custom molecular probes into mainstream drug discovery.
The CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick will help Lemna Bio validate additional aspects of its technology and move toward pilot projects with pharmaceutical partners.
Founded by biochemical engineer and second-time biotech entrepreneur Moustafa Houmani (CEO) and Dr. Lucien Krapp (CTO), who developed the core technology during his PhD at EPFL under Professor Matteo Dal Peraro (scientific co-founder), Lemna Bio combines scientific depth with entrepreneurial execution. The startup has already attracted interest from pharmaceutical companies and, with the support of Venture Kick, is ready to expand its platform and industry partnerships.
“Venture Kick’s support is more than funding — it connects us to a community of experienced founders and investors who challenge us to sharpen our strategy and accelerate impact,” highlighted Lemna Bio CEO Moustafa Houmani.
➡️ Source: Venture Kick. 📸 © Leman Bio. Lemna Bio Co-Founders: CEO Moustafa Houmani and CTO Lucien Krapp.