Basecamp Research raises $140M for AI-designed cell therapies
London-based Basecamp Research has raised $140 million (€122 million) in an oversubscribed Series C to expand its biological AI models and move a preclinical therapeutics pipeline toward the clinic. Its first focus is in vivo cell therapy.
Why it matters: Basecamp wants to use AI to design both genetic payloads and the proteins that insert them into cells. If it can make that work in vivo, the approach could avoid some of the manufacturing steps required to produce conventional CAR-T therapies.
The investors: The Series C was led by S32. The round also drew 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. André Hoffmann, Roche’s vice chairman, was among additional investors from the biopharma and other industries.
How it works: Basecamp says its EDEN models design DNA sequences and recombinase proteins that could insert large genetic payloads into cells without making double-strand breaks.
- The core dataset behind EDEN comes from the Trillion Gene Atlas, “the world’s largest proprietary biological AI training dataset”, according to the company.
- Basecamp builds its proprietary dataset by working with biodiversity partners to collect and sequence biological samples across more than 30 countries and all seven continents. NVIDIA, Anthropic, PacBio and Ultima Genomics are among the partners in the Trillion Gene Atlas project.
Yes, but: The name describes the project’s ambition, not a completed trillion-gene dataset. Basecamp’s website currently reports more than 100 billion novel genes.
Zoom in: In a preprint article, Basecamp reported that EDEN could design DNA-inserting proteins from a target sequence just 30 DNA letters long, including sequences absent from its training data. The authors reported a 63.2% functional hit rate: roughly six in 10 designs tested showed activity in laboratory assays.
- The team also tested whether the designs worked in human cells. Half of the 20 proteins tested successfully inserted a CD19 CAR construct into human T cells, supporting the technology’s potential for engineering cancer-fighting cells.
- The model’s capabilities also extended beyond gene insertion: 32 of 33 AI-designed antimicrobial peptides showed activity against bacteria in laboratory tests, including multidrug-resistant pathogens.
The pipeline: Basecamp lists three in vivo CAR-T programs on its website: one for blood cancers and one for an undisclosed autoimmune indication are in lead optimization; a solid-tumor program is in discovery. It also lists a gene-insertion program for phenylketonuria, antimicrobial peptides and a diabetes-focused peptide program.
What’s next: Basecamp has given no date for its first clinical trial. The funding will also support more pharmaceutical partnerships, a task it has handed to newly appointed chief business officer Richard Pearce, formerly of Biogen.
