Category: Press Releases

Innovative System Combines Physical and Virtual Chemistry with Discovery Focused AI and Robotic Automation to Find Better Molecules Faster and Less Expensively 

MENLO PARK, CA – July 7, 2025 — Synfini, Inc., a trailblazer in AI-driven chemistry automation, today announced a $8.9 million expansion of its discovery round, led by JSL Health Capital and supported by a strong syndicate of early-stage investors. This brings Synfini’s total funding to $53 million, comprised of non-dilutive grants and venture investment. The company’s AI Cloud Foundry platform uniquely integrates artificial intelligence, automated synthesis, and iterative molecular design to dramatically accelerate small molecule drug discovery and synthesis. By combining physical and virtual chemistry in a unified workflow, Synfini delivers novel, high-quality pharmaceutically optimized compounds at unprecedented speed, while dramatically reducing costs. 

Synfini’s platform eliminates traditional bottlenecks in early drug discovery by streamlining target selection, compound design, and synthesis into an agile, integrated workflow, replacing traditional manual chemistry processes. Since its spinout from SRI in 2023, the company has validated its approach through early commercial traction and strategic partnerships. This additional funding provides the resources necessary for further development, to scale operations, and to expand customer collaborations. 

“We’re building the next generation of drug discovery infrastructure,” said Doug Donzelli, CEO of Synfini. “This funding enables us to move faster, go broader with our platform, and deepen our relationships with both biotech innovators and large pharma. We’re grateful to be supported by a syndicate of investors who share our vision, including those who’ve backed us since the very beginning.” 

The round is led by JSL Health, who joins top venture firms and deep science investors including SRI Ventures, WERU Investments, Ferocity Capital, High Water Venture Partners, Foothill Ventures, Trust Ventures, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures.   

Lekan Wang, Managing Partner at JSL Health Capital commented: “Synfini is the rare company that emerges from the foam, fully formed. After years of R&D at legendary research outfit SRI, Synfini’s end-to-end medicinal chemistry AI platform demonstrably shortens small molecule iteration cycles from months to just days. Project planning, property prediction, reaction routes, and synthesis––all included and fully integrated into a chemistry operating system built with chemists and biologists in mind. This is true American innovation that promises to dramatically increase drug pipeline velocity from hit to FTIH. We cannot be more excited to partner with Synfini.” 

“Through its technology and expert application of AI, Synfini has demonstrated the ability to fundamentally change the quality, speed, and cost of small molecule discovery,” said Xuhui Shao from Foothill Ventures. “Synfini’s ground-breaking approach will accelerate the delivery of important new therapies to improve patients’ lives.” 

The new funding will support further hiring in scientific and engineering roles, expansion of Synfini’s software and automated lab capabilities, and growth of commercial partnerships in areas including GPCR-targeted therapeutics and precision oncology. 

About Synfini 

Synfini, Inc. is revolutionizing small molecule drug discovery with its AI Cloud Foundry—a platform that integrates artificial intelligence, chemistry automation, and cloud-native workflows to generate better molecules, faster. Founded by domain experts in synthetic chemistry, machine learning, and drug development, Synfini partners with biotech and pharmaceutical companies as well as academia to bring forward breakthrough therapies with greater speed and precision.  

Collaboration Combines Best-in-Class Biology with Agile AI and Chemistry Automation for Rapid Discovery of Better Molecules for Highly Valuable G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR) Targets

May 21, 2025 – Menlo Park, CA – Synfini, Inc., the leader in AI-driven agile chemistry for better molecule discovery, announced today that it has entered a collaboration with biotechnology company Multispan to co-discover and develop drug candidates against an undisclosed G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) target. The collaboration will combine Multspan’s world-leading expertise in GPCR biology and assay capabilities with the Synfini AI Cloud Foundry that accelerates drug discovery through AI and chemistry automation.

“We are excited to be entering into this collaboration with Synfini to accelerate drug discovery around a publicly available high-value target,” said Helena Mancebo, CEO of Multispan. “By using Synfini’s AI design and rapid chemistry automation tools we have already achieved our first milestones in the collaboration.”

The Synfini Cloud Foundry accelerates “design-make -test-analyze” (DMTA) cycles in molecular discovery by automating workflows in virtual design and physical experiment. Drug hunters can perform complex multi-parametric optimization from their desktops to drive small molecule hit discovery, hit-to-lead and lead optimization. This approach to agile drug discovery identifies better preclinical drug candidates faster and more cost-effectively.

“We are very pleased to work with Multispan on a challenging target that addresses significant unmet medical need for patients,” said Doug Donzelli, CEO of Synfini. “Multispan brings the best assays available to improve GPCR drug discovery that, when combined with the Synfini platform, can drive significant reductions in discovery cycle times. Through the partnership, both Synfini and Multispan customers will benefit from the foundational drug discovery assets we provide.”

The two companies have further agreed to make their combined technology platforms commercially available to the drug discovery community specializing in GPCR and other targets. By doing so Synfini and Multispan will provide a “one stop shop” for accelerated drug discovery using AI, automation and cutting- edge biology for clients and partners with their own targets. Drug candidates resulting from the current target collaboration will also be available to customers looking for advanced preclinical assets for clinical development.

About Synfini Inc.

Synfini Inc., a privately held Menlo Park, California-based company, is a pioneer in agile chemistry. Its advanced, automated molecular discovery platform is transforming drug discovery through integrated neuro-symbolic AI, discovery-focused robotic automation, and world-class chemistry data. Synfini provides accelerated molecular discovery to drug hunters in academia, biotech and major pharmaceutical companies worldwide. For more information visit www.synfini.com.

About Multispan Inc.

Multispan Inc., based in the California Bay Area, specializes in cell-based potency assays and high-throughput compound screening, with a strong focus on GPCRs. For two decades, Multispan has been instrumental in advancing numerous drugs into the clinic while developing over 600 HTS-ready stable cell line clones and more than 2,000 HTS assays. Committed to enhancing efficiency and sustainability in drug discovery, Multispan maximizes the success of each project by leveraging technology and cutting-edge processes to “make every assay count”. For more information visit www.multispaninc.com.–

Startup to commercialize and scale automated compound testing for rapid drug production

September 26, 2023 — Menlo Park, California – SRI announced today it is spinning off Synfini, a biosciences platform that accelerates the process by which pharmaceutical and other companies can design, synthesize, and bring to market molecules for drug development.

The technology brings together a suite of software and hardware solutions developed at SRI through a significant, multi-year development effort. The suite includes a neuro-symbolic AI molecule designer, a computational synthetic planning tool, a high-throughput automated chemistry system, and a flow chemistry hardware platform that reliably performs multi-step synthesis.

“At SRI we are always tremendously excited to see the extraordinary technologies developed in our labs go to market,” said David Parekh, SRI’s chief executive officer. “Synfini’s suite of hardware solutions, combined with cutting-edge AI technologies, holds great promise for accelerating the speed at which biopharma companies can develop new therapeutics — and for creating a healthier future for all.”

The co-founding team of the new company, Synfini Inc., includes Chief Executive Officer Doug Donzelli and Elizabeth Miyagi, VP Finance, with the shared vision of creating scalable operations for rapid synthesis and testing of individual molecules or molecular classes to advance the fields of pharmaceutics, agrochemicals, and specialty chemicals. It also includes Peter Madrid, Ph.D., and Nathan Collins, Ph.D., who played leading roles in SRI’s development of the Synfini suite as head of the Applied Research group of SRI’s Biosciences division and chief strategy officer of the division, respectively.

“We are just starting to see the impact of AI across so many industries, and when AI technology is combined with the Synfini platform we have a meaningful opportunity to significantly improve the pharmaceutical development process,” said Kathlynn Brown, president of SRI’s Biosciences division. “We are proud of the work we’ve done, and we look forward to supporting the team at this new company as they continue to advance innovation in drug discovery, testing, and delivery to improve health and wellbeing.”

Synfini will offer visionary leaders in biopharma who are bringing pharmaceuticals into commercial use the ability to understand outcomes faster, increase the value of their work, and quickly pivot to new drugs based on rapid clinical findings. Synfini also offers pharmaceutical companies the ability to reduce costs, streamline the go-to-market process, and make an even greater impact on healthcare outcomes around the world.

Synfini joins a long line of technologies to be spun off from SRI intellectual property over the nonprofit’s 75-plusyear history. Consistent with its mission of developing and delivering world-changing solutions, SRI intellectual property is behind many of the world’s best-known technologies and companies, including Siri and Intuitive Surgical.

“We are incredibly proud of our long history of bringing transformative technologies to market,” said Suresh Sunderrajan, president of SRI’s Commercialization group. “We know that Synfini will have an extraordinary impact on the world of pharmaceutical development, and we are excited to see a platform built at SRI thrive as an independent company.”

About SRI
SRI International is an independent nonprofit research institute headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., with a rich history of supporting government and industry. We create and deliver world-changing solutions for a safer, healthier, and more sustainable future. For more than 75 years, we have collaborated across technical and scientific disciplines to discover and develop groundbreaking products and technologies and bring innovations and ideas to the marketplace. Learn more at www.sri.com.