London drug discovery company Isomorphic Labs is in early discussions to raise new capital at a valuation of at least $40bn and as much as $50bn (£37bn), according to Bloomberg. The Google DeepMind spinout was valued at roughly $17.5bn when it closed a $2.1bn Series B in May.
Isomorphic Labs was founded in London in 2021 and is led by Sir Demis Hassabis, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist. It uses artificial intelligence to design candidate medicines, building on DeepMind's AlphaFold system for predicting protein structures.
The company is working on treatments for cancer and immune disorders and has partnerships with Eli Lilly, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson.
The numbers
The talks are at an early stage and no agreement has been reached, Bloomberg reported. The size of the proposed raise and the identity of any lead investor have not been disclosed.
A deal at $40bn would be about 2.3 times the previous valuation. At $50bn the multiple rises to about 2.9 times, reached in five months.
Isomorphic raised $600m in March 2025 and a further $2.1bn in a Series B in May this year, backed by investors including Alphabet, Thrive Capital and the UK Sovereign AI Fund. Disclosed external funding stands at about $2.7bn.
Who owns it
Alphabet remains the majority shareholder. Any new round would dilute the parent's stake, but the extent depends on the amount raised and whether Alphabet takes up its share; neither has been disclosed.
Hassabis continues as chief executive. In August he stepped back from day-to-day leadership of DeepMind to become its chairman and Alphabet's chief scientist.
The Sovereign AI Fund's participation in May gave the UK government an indirect holding in the company, which would be marked up sharply if the reported terms are agreed.
Valuation ahead of the clinic
The price under discussion is being set before any of the company's own drug candidates has been tested in humans. Isomorphic is targeting its first clinical trials by the end of 2026.
That gap applies across the sector. Few AI drug discovery companies have reached human trials, and none has yet brought an AI-discovered medicine to market.
On Wednesday Isomorphic joined Google DeepMind and Meta in committing a combined $300m to an initiative led by research organisation Biohub to build AI models that predict how human cells behave. The project is part of a wider $1.8bn effort to develop so-called virtual cells for testing treatments digitally.
What's next
A round at the reported level would place Isomorphic among the most valuable private technology companies headquartered in Britain. UK AI companies raised £8.3bn in 2025, according to figures cited by City AM.
The outcome of the talks, and the first trial start, are the two events that will show whether the valuation can be supported by clinical data.
Original source: City AM — https://www.cityam.com/google-deepminds-london-ai-drug-spinout-eyes-50bn-valuation/
