There’s a lot to fret about today, and most of us don’t think much of the possibility of AI getting used to use biology as one of the biggest threats facing our world.
Seed-stage investors have a different opinion. Over the past few months, two startups focused on the intersection of artificial intelligence and biosecurity have raised large seed rounds OpenAI among its investors.
Valthoscreator of AI systems that discover biological threats and design countermeasures, raised $30 million last fall in its first known round of funding. What matters is a company headquartered in New York Founders Fund AND Capital Lux as sponsors, together with OpenAI.
Weeks later, Biography of the Red QueenA self-described AI-based biosecurity company has secured $15 million in a seed round led by OpenAI and joined by investors including: Cerberus ventures, Fifty years AND Halcyon Futures. The company’s operating thesis is that as artificial intelligence capabilities advance, biological threats grow exponentially, so security must scale at the same pace.
Meanwhile, on the nonprofit front, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts Safe Bio last 12 months, grant financing was secured from many sources, including $1.4 million from Giving coefficients in December. The organization’s mission is to secure the future against catastrophic pandemics.
A drop in the AI bucket
Considering all the capital recently pumped into artificial intelligence, these are not relatively large sums spent on biosecurity. By comparison, the two largest seed rounds represent lower than one-tenth of percent of OpenAI’s record $110 billion in funding secured last week.
What’s more noteworthy than the sums invested are the relatively latest areas in which startups can scale.
According to Crunchbase data, the term “biosecurity” and similar terminology have appeared in descriptions of funded startups, but not as often in the context of artificial intelligence. Funded startups around this topic also often focus on livestock.
Australian startup ExoFlarefor example, he raised several million two years ago, in accordance with Crunchbase datawith particular emphasis on tracking biosecurity threats to cattle, pigs, eggs and poultry. And based in Nebraska Dara he answered $1.1 million last 12 months for a company focused on swine disease surveillance.
Running in place
In addition to their focus on artificial intelligence, the latest biosecurity seed-funded startups stand out for the dire scenarios they hope to stop.
For Valthosit is now faster to weaponize biology than to develop latest drugs, an ominous development that AI leaders have identified as one of the best threats of our time. The company envisions a future in which any threat to human health will be immediately identified and neutralized.
Red Queen Bio brings to mind a similarly disturbing spectrum of threats, reflected in the nomenclature. The The Red Queen hypothesisthe concept that evolution requires constant adaptation to ever-evolving threats comes from a passage in Through the Looking Glass. In it, the tyrannical Red Queen explains that in her kingdom, “all you have to do is run as much as you can to stay in the same place.”
Running to remain in the same place looks like an apt metaphor for the modern era more broadly in countless areas, not only biosecurity. However, this is one of the areas where failure to follow through could result in the potentially deadliest penalties.