Announcing our $52M Series A to Build Physical AI Scientists

When Medra emerged out of stealth in September, we were approached by several leading biopharma companies, all with the same question: how can they integrate AI deeply into their R&D workflows? 

Many of these companies have been considering (or are part of) partnerships with leading frontier model companies. But no matter how powerful Claude or GPT-5 are, general reasoning models are still unable to run experiments and validate ideas. AI will not transform drug discovery if it never leaves the screen, it has to be directly integrated into the physical execution of experiments in the lab.

Medra is building the first Physical AI Scientist that delivers on the tight integration needed between AI that can reason, and AI that can perform experiments. Our Scientific AI can generate hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret results. Its companion system, Medra’s Physical AI, uses general-purpose robots to autonomously run experiments with the flexibility of a human and the scalability of a machine. 

We’re already seeing the power of closed-loop science with leading biopharma companies, including Genentech, Cultivarium, and Addition Therapeutics. Together, we are pioneering an entirely new category in biopharma R&D with the ultimate goal of advancing therapies for patients who need it most.

I’m excited to announce our $52M Series A, led by Human Capital with participation from existing investors Lux Capital, Neo, and NFDG, as well as new investors Catalio Capital Management, Menlo Ventures, 776, and more. With their support, we are growing the team, scaling partnerships, and building our own large-scale autonomous lab launching in 2026.

If our vision for an autonomous scientific future speaks to you, we would like to hear from you. We are hiring across software, hardware, operations, science, and robotics.

— Michelle and the rest of the Medra team