Gunderson Dettmer represented client Xaira Therapeutics, an AI biotechnology company, from formation and through $1 billion in committed funding led by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Capital. Xaira emerged from stealth mode and aims to reinvent drug R&D with generative AI methods that can design complex molecules from scratch, find new targets, and cut months or even years from the process.

In the announcement of the transaction, Xaira Therapeutics CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne said, “AI is going to transform every step of the drug discovery process. At the very least, everybody would agree it’s going to improve things incrementally: 10% here, 20% there, 30%. You multiply all of that out and you could get two-, three-fold improvements in speed and success rates.”

The Gunderson Dettmer Xaira team has been led by Kirt Shuldberg, Jeff Thacker, and Brendan McCarthy, and included Matthew Rietfors, Riley Millender, Benjamin Cohen-Kurzrock and Anthony Farnesi.

Companies
Xaira Therapeutics
ARCH Venture Partners
Foresite Capital