London-based BioTech startup Ternary Therapeutics has raised €4.1 million (£3.6 million) in Seed funding to scale an AI platform designed to create a brand new class of medicines often called molecular glues.
The spherical was led by European enterprise agency daphni, with participation from Tempo Ventures, the i&i Biotech Fund and the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, managed by Future Planet Capital.
Dr Chris Tame, co-founder and Chief Government of Ternary Therapeutics, says: “Molecular glues have delivered a number of the most enjoyable breakthroughs in drug discovery over the previous decade, however traditionally they’ve been found largely by likelihood reasonably than by way of a scientific course of.
“Our platform is designed to vary that by combining physics-informed AI with fast experimental validation to engineer these molecules deliberately and at scale. That permits us to strategy drug discovery extra like an engineering drawback than a strategy of trial and error.”
EU-Startups has seen comparable rounds throughout European startups growing AI-enabled platforms for drug discovery and adjoining BioTech instruments.
London-based Sable Bio secured €3.15 million in Seed funding to increase its AI platform designed to foretell drug goal security and cut back scientific trial failure charges. In Austria, Graph Therapeutics raised €3 million in pre-Seed financing to advance an AI-driven drug discovery platform targeted on inflammatory illnesses. Oxford-based Scripta Therapeutics additionally attracted €10.3 million in Seed funding to construct a data-rich platform combining experimental biology and computational modelling to determine new therapeutic candidates.
In the meantime, Swiss startup FluoSphera secured €1.23 million to scale AI-enabled imaging and evaluation instruments aimed toward bettering preclinical drug discovery workflows.
In opposition to this backdrop, Ternary’s €4.1 million spherical locations it inside a broader wave of early-stage funding concentrating on AI-driven approaches to drug discovery and biomedical analysis infrastructure throughout Europe.
These rounds recommend roughly €21.8 million in funding has flowed into startups working on this section throughout 2025–2026 alone. The presence of different UK-based firms reminiscent of Sable Bio and Scripta Therapeutics additionally highlights the UK’s continued position as a hub for AI-enabled BioTech platforms, significantly these searching for to use machine studying and computational modelling to beforehand troublesome areas of therapeutic discovery.
Dr Tame provides: “This funding allows us to increase the platform, develop our staff and speed up programmes in direction of the clinic, whereas constructing the foundations for long-term partnerships with pharmaceutical firms.”
Based in 2024, Ternary is growing a platform that mixes machine studying, physics-based molecular modelling and fast laboratory testing to design a brand new class of medicines often called molecular glues – medication able to concentrating on proteins lengthy thought of undruggable.
The strategy has already produced a number of multi-billion-euro Biotech firms within the discipline of focused protein degradation. Nevertheless, the corporate says that the majority molecular glues have traditionally been found by likelihood reasonably than intentionally designed.
Ternary’s platform goals to vary that by turning the invention course of right into a repeatable engineering system. Its AI fashions predict how proteins behave and recommend molecules that would deliver them collectively. Scientists then check these molecules within the lab, feeding the outcomes again into the system so the following spherical of designs turns into progressively extra correct.
The corporate has already generated a pipeline of preclinical programmes targeted on inflammatory and neuroinflammatory illnesses, and has secured early analysis collaborations with pharmaceutical and specialist biotechnology companions.
Cristian Pinto, Investor at daphni, says: “Designing molecular glues predictably is among the hardest issues in drug discovery. Ternary has constructed a disciplined platform that integrates machine studying, physics and experimental biology to deal with that problem.”
At this time’s funding follows the launch of Daphni Blue, a €260 million fund targeted on science-led DeepTech firms – as reported by EU-Startups.
The brand new funding might be used to increase Ternary’s computational and laboratory groups and advance lead programmes in direction of preclinical growth.
Oliver Sexton, Funding Director, UKI2S, managed by Future Planet Capital provides, “Ternary’s strategy to drug design is enabled by its compute energy. The mix of increasing information of biology and up to date developments in AI permit it to grasp large complexity and the ensuing molecular glue drug candidates goal areas which have traditionally been thought of out of attain. This can be a world class instance of giant ambition with vital potential for affected person profit that UKI2S is delighted to again.”
A big proportion of disease-driving proteins lack apparent drug-binding websites, limiting the attain of conventional medicines. Molecular glues provide a solution to bypass that limitation by creating new interactions between proteins.
If platforms like Ternary’s can design these interactions reliably, they may considerably increase the variety of druggable targets and open new alternatives for partnerships with main pharmaceutical firms.
