Start up Profile

Recursion’s AI-powered approach to phenotypic screening and other aspects of drug discovery—originally developed to find new uses for old drugs—is built on its collection of cellular images and other data, analysed with computer vision and neural networks to spot changes and discover novel biology. In under two years since closing their series B round in 2017, the company has put two drugs discovered on their platform into clinical trials, had their first discoveries with Takeda optioned, grown their automated experimental bandwidth by an order of magnitude, expanded beyond rare diseases into new therapeutic areas like inflammation, infectious disease and immuno-oncology. In July 2019, Recursion secured $121 million in new financing for its artificial intelligence programs. The series C round was led by Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, managed under the Edinburgh-based firm Baillie Gifford, alongside participation from the company’s new backers Intermountain Ventures, Regents of the University of Minnesota, Texas Tech University System and additional angel investors.