Basecamp Research raises more in one round than in its first seven years combined
S32 led a $140M round that takes Basecamp Research's total funding to $225M since 2019. Two of the sixteen named backers, NVIDIA and Anthropic's Anthology Fund, are also partners on the dataset its models train on.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Basecamp Research said on September 23 it had closed an oversubscribed $140M Series C led by S32, to train a new generation of its EDEN models and push AI-designed therapeutics towards clinical development.
- NVIDIA's venture arm NVentures returned as an investor and Anthropic's Anthology Fund came in new, alongside state-backed and philanthropic money in the same round.
- Andy Conrad, a general partner at S32 and former chief executive of Google's Verily, joins the board of directors.
Why it matters
- Who has to decide decision Recruiting Richard Pearce from Biogen as chief business officer puts pharmaceutical partnership revenue ahead of a solo drug programme, so the people Basecamp has to convince next sit in business development.
- Who's exposed exposure The NATO Innovation Fund and the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund now hold equity in a pipeline that has not been dosed in a human. That puts public money on preclinical risk.
- What doesn't add up contradiction PR Newswire lists Anthropic's Anthology Fund among the backers while tech.eu headlines Anthropic itself, and the fund is a partnership with Menlo Ventures, leaving Anthropic's own exposure unquantified.
- What's now possible capability Cash of this size lets Basecamp train the next EDEN generation before any partner pays for access, and the Trillion Gene Atlas stays proprietary while deals are negotiated.
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Basecamp has raised $225M since it was founded in London in 2019, and $140M of that came in this round, so about $85M covered the first seven years. The new money is roughly 1.6 times everything raised before it, and 62 percent of the company's lifetime capital.
What it buys, on the company's own account, is a new generation of EDEN models and a pipeline moving towards clinical development, beginning with in vivo cell therapy. That means reprogramming a patient's cells inside the body by pairing long designed DNA sequences with large serine recombinases that integrate them into the genome. The cost problem Basecamp names is manufacturing, which for today's cell therapies runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient. Read that phrase as $200,000 to $500,000 and the whole round equals between 280 and 700 patients of current-generation production. The platform case is that treating inside the body removes the per-patient factory step.
Sixteen investors are named. Split evenly that is under $9M each, and the lead will have taken more than a sixteenth. Six of the sixteen are not conventional venture funds: the NATO Innovation Fund, the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, King Philanthropies, NVIDIA and Anthropic's Anthology Fund.
The last two were involved before the round. Both are named as partners in building the Trillion Gene Atlas, alongside PacBio and Ultima Genomics. Neither release says whether cash moves between them for compute or model work. S32, which led, was founded by Bill Maris.
"We believe the future of medicine lies in reprogramming the body to repair itself. We design the models and the medicines to teach it how," said Glen Gowers, co-founder and chief executive. Andre Hoffmann, vice-chairman of Roche, invested personally and said that "Personalised, AI-designed therapeutics represent the next transformation of that journey."
The releases name a modality. They do not name a molecule, and they give no valuation, no lead candidate and no filing date. In my view the $140M is a bet on the dataset first and a drug second, because the Atlas was assembled through access and benefit-sharing partnerships in more than 30 countries across all seven continents. A rival cannot replicate those partnerships. The case against: "strong preclinical results across multiple modalities and disease areas" is Basecamp's own characterisation. Preclinical breadth in a press release has a poor record of surviving a first patient. I would drop the dataset view if the first disclosed pharma deal pays chiefly for model access at a modest upfront, since that would say buyers are pricing the software. Until some partner pays a disclosed sum, this round is the only external price on EDEN.
What to watch
- A pharmaceutical partnership with disclosed upfront and milestone payments, which would price EDEN outside an equity round.
- A first-in-human or IND filing naming a lead in vivo cell therapy candidate and its indication.
- Any later disclosure of whether cash moves between Basecamp and NVIDIA or Anthropic for compute and model work.
Information, not investment advice. This story is general information about companies and markets, drawn from cited reporting. It is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security; check the cited sources before acting.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+40
- Incentives75
- Confidence60
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers- Builder
- Builder 30%
- Operator
- Operator 15%
- Investor
- Investor 55%
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Basecamp Research announced a $140M oversubscribed Series C on Sept 23, 2026, led by S32, to train a new generation of EDEN models and advance a pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics towards clinical development, starting with in vivo cell therapy, and expand pharmaceutical partnerships.
- [2]
Sixteen participants are named in the round: S32 (lead), Anthropic's Anthology Fund, Catalio Capital Management, European Tech Collective, Firebrand, River Capital, Inception Fund, King Philanthropies, NATO Innovation Fund, NVIDIA, PostScriptum, Redalpine, The Rockefeller Foundation, Singular, Sovereign AI and True Ventures, with additional investment from senior leaders across pharma, biotech and global industry.
- [3]
Basecamp is applying EDEN, its biological foundation model, to in vivo cell therapy, reprogramming a patient's cells inside the body, by pairing EDEN's ability to design long and complex DNA sequences with large serine recombinases that precisely integrate them into the genome, aiming to make cell therapies more sophisticated, more customisable and simpler to administer.
- [4]
Basecamp Research, founded in 2019 and based in London, has raised $225M in total funding including this round.
- [5]
Andy Conrad, General Partner at S32 and former CEO of Google's Verily, joins Basecamp Research's Board of Directors.
- [6]
S32 is the California venture firm founded by Bill Maris, founder of GV, the venture arm of Alphabet.
- [7]
The company says it has demonstrated strong preclinical results across multiple modalities and disease areas.
- [8]
Today's cell therapies are limited both in the complexity of what they can deliver and by a manufacturing process that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient.
- [9]
The Trillion Gene Atlas, described by the company as the world's largest proprietary biological AI training dataset, was built with partners including NVIDIA, Anthropic, PacBio and Ultima Genomics, and draws on biological data collected through access and benefit-sharing partnerships in more than 30 countries across all seven continents.
- [10]
"We believe the future of medicine lies in reprogramming the body to repair itself. We design the models and the medicines to teach it how," said Glen Gowers, co-founder and CEO of Basecamp Research.
- [11]
Additional investment came from senior leaders including Andre Hoffmann, Vice-Chairman of Roche, who said: "Personalised, AI-designed therapeutics represent the next transformation of that journey."
- [12]
To expand its pharmaceutical partnerships, Basecamp has appointed Richard Pearce, formerly of Biogen, as Chief Business Officer.
- [13]
About $85M was raised before this round, covering the period from the 2019 founding to September 2026.
- [14]
The Series C is roughly 1.6 times all capital raised before it.
- [15]
The Series C is 62 percent of the company's lifetime capital raised.
- [16]
NVIDIA's venture arm NVentures is a returning investor, and Anthropic's Anthology Fund, a partnership between Anthropic and US VC Menlo Ventures, is a new investor; tech.eu's headline describes the round as having participation from Anthropic.
- [17]
Other new investors are Catalio, the NATO Innovation Fund, Rockefeller, European Tech Collective and the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund; returning investors include Firebrand, River Capital, King Philanthropies and Redalpine.
- [18]
Neither announcement gives a valuation for the round, a named lead therapeutic candidate, a target indication or a regulatory filing date; the pipeline is identified by modality, in vivo cell therapy.
- [19]
Six of the sixteen named participants are state-backed, philanthropic or corporate strategic investors rather than conventional venture funds: the NATO Innovation Fund, the UK government's Sovereign AI Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, King Philanthropies, NVIDIA and Anthropic's Anthology Fund.
- [20]
Split evenly across the sixteen named participants, the round averages under $9M each.
- [21]
Taking hundreds of thousands of dollars per patient as $200,000 to $500,000, the $140M round equals between 280 and 700 patients of current-generation cell therapy manufacturing.
Sources
3 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- prnewswire.comBasecamp Research raises $140M to advance AI-designed therapeutics
1 article · September 23, 2026
- tech.euLondon-based AI life sciences startup Basecamp Research raised a $140M Series C led by S32, with participation from Anthropic, taking its total funding to $225M
1 article · September 23, 2026
- ventureburn.comBasecamp Research Raises $140M for AI-Designed Medicines
1 article · September 23, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- AI Drug Discovery
- Biotech Venture Funding
- Biological foundation models
- In vivo cell therapy
Entities
- S32
- Nvidia
- Basecamp Research
- Sovereign AI Fund
- Trillion Gene Atlas
- Anthology Fund
- Anthropic