@OpenAI @lightspeedvp Thanks John! Looking forward to more together. Reply to @johncumbers: @kevinweil left @OpenAI to build a chemistry lab. That tells you where the real bottleneck in AI drug discovery is. Warp Sciences came out of stealth this week with $215M to build a US-based chemistry CRO that pairs experienced chemists with AI and robotics. @lightspeedvp led, with @ivp, @mayfield_fund, @Lux_Capital, Premji Invest and @MenloVentures in the round. I know Kevin and @dpatil well. This is the team I'd want on this problem. Designing a molecule is getting easier. Making it, testing it and learning from the result is still slow, manual and mostly offshore. Warp is going after that physical loop. What stands out to me: - They start with lead optimization analog synthesis. Real compounds delivered to real customers. - They charge per compound delivered. If the synthesis fails, the customer doesn't pay. - They record failed experiments too, and run their own campaigns to generate training data. - Customers own their programs. Warp has no pipeline of its own. - It's built in the US. The founders: - Kevin Weil (CEO), former CPO and VP of Science at OpenAI - DJ Patil (COO), first US Chief Data Scientist - Sol Reisberg (CSO), medicinal chemistry leader from Terremoto Biosciences - Mano Paluri (CTO), founding member of FAIR and VP at @Meta Superintelligence Labs This round also lands in a soft market. Biopharma VC fell to $6.44B in Q3 from $10.17B in Q2. Investors are still writing big checks for teams that tie AI to the lab bench. We talk about this every year at @SynBioBeta. The companies that close the loop between models and wet lab work will move fastest. Congratulations Kevin, DJ, Sol, Mano and the whole Warp team.