# Chai Discovery Raises $400 Million Series C for AI Drug Discovery

> Chai Discovery has closed a 400 million dollar Series C at a 3.8 billion dollar valuation, roughly tripling its worth in seven months. Index Ventures led the round, with Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Bain Capital and Sapphire also participating, and the more telling signal is on the customer side: the company says its platform is already deployed by drugmakers including Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Chai builds AI models that predict and reprogram how molecules interact, the kind of structural biology work that sits upstream of designing new drugs. It is a fast climb for a company that raised a 30 million dollar seed in 2024 and shipped its first model, Chai-1, within its first year, and the valuation reflects how eagerly capital is flowing into AI for the life sciences. The open question, as always in this field, is how much real-world drug output follows the impressive benchmarks and big-name logos. But with major pharma paying rather than just piloting, Chai is further along than most of the AI-for-biology cohort.

_Section: [AI Funding Tracker](https://www.wortins.com/funding) · Source: Fierce Biotech · Published Saturday, August 15, 2026_

## Wortins' read

Chai Discovery has closed a 400 million dollar Series C at a 3.8 billion dollar valuation, roughly tripling its worth in seven months. Index Ventures led the round, with Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Bain Capital and Sapphire also participating, and the more telling signal is on the customer side: the company says its platform is already deployed by drugmakers including Eli Lilly and Pfizer. Chai builds AI models that predict and reprogram how molecules interact, the kind of structural biology work that sits upstream of designing new drugs. It is a fast climb for a company that raised a 30 million dollar seed in 2024 and shipped its first model, Chai-1, within its first year, and the valuation reflects how eagerly capital is flowing into AI for the life sciences. The open question, as always in this field, is how much real-world drug output follows the impressive benchmarks and big-name logos. But with major pharma paying rather than just piloting, Chai is further along than most of the AI-for-biology cohort.

## Source

[Read the full story at Fierce Biotech](https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/chai-brews-400m-series-c-fuel-ai-used-lilly-novartis-and-pfizer)

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