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Basecamp Research

Category: AI in Biotech / Drug Discovery

AI-biotech company building foundation models on the world's largest proprietary genomic biodiversity dataset to design new medicines, including programmable gene-insertion therapeutics. Basecamp Research was founded in 2019. The company is led by Glen Gowers. Based in London, United Kingdom. Team size: 101-500. Total funding raised: $85M. Latest round: Strategic Investment. Key investors include Singular, True Ventures, Hummingbird Ventures, S32, Redalpine, Valo Health, NVIDIA (NVentures), Blue Horizon Corporation, Systemiq Capital, Paul Polman (angel).

Founded
2019
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
Team size
101-500
Total funding
$85M

Value proposition

Basecamp Research collects genomic sequence data from previously unsampled biodiversity worldwide and uses it to train proprietary AI models (akin to GPT-scale models for biology) that design programmable gene-insertion enzymes and novel proteins for therapeutic, industrial, and diagnostic applications — offering an alternative to CRISPR-based approaches capable of much larger genetic edits.

Products and solutions

BaseGraph™ (AI protein/enzyme design platform), EDEN-AI™ (disease-focused AI platform), proprietary programmable gene-insertion AI model family (GPT-4-scale, trained on Nvidia GPUs), world's largest curated biological sequence database (100M+ species sampled).

Unique value

Owns the entire data pipeline — from proprietary field-collected genomic biodiversity data to model training — enabling smaller, more capital-efficient foundation models than US AI labs building on public data alone.

Target customer

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies (partnership/licensing model), plus academic and industrial research collaborators.

Industries served

Biotech / Life Sciences, Pharmaceutical R&D, Gene Therapy, Drug Discovery

Technology advantage

Proprietary, exclusively-sourced genomic biodiversity dataset (100M+ species) not available to competitors; tight co-design of dataset size and model scale; trained on NVIDIA GPU infrastructure; lab-generated post-training data.

How they differentiate

Unlike competitors relying primarily on public protein databases (e.g., AlphaFold-derived data), Basecamp Research controls a proprietary, field-collected biodiversity dataset spanning 100M+ species, enabling smaller, cheaper models with comparable capability, and focuses specifically on programmable gene-insertion (vs. CRISPR-style editing).

Main competitors

Isomorphic Labs, EvolutionaryScale, Latent Labs, Chai Discovery

Key partnerships

NVIDIA (NVentures investment + GPU/model co-development, presented at JPM Healthcare Conference 2026), Broad Institute (David Liu lab collaboration on genetic medicines), Microsoft (co-authored research paper), Anthropic, Ultima Genomics, PacBio (100M-species genomic data collaboration per Fortune), named in UK government's £2bn Nvidia AI investment initiative alongside Revolut and Wayve.

Major milestones

2021: Series A (£16.14M), Oct 2024: $60M Series B led by Singular, collaboration with Broad Institute (David Liu) on genetic medicines, Jan 2026: unveiled world's first AI models for programmable gene insertion, confirmed NVIDIA NVentures strategic investment, presented at JPM Healthcare Conference with NVIDIA/Microsoft co-authored paper, named among UK startups in Nvidia's £2bn UK AI investment initiative.

Growth metrics

~$85M total raised across 3 rounds since 2021; grew to 51-200 employees; models trained at GPT-4-scale training-data volume; claims 97-100% accuracy in lab-tested peptide/pathogen-kill design tasks.

Market positioning

Frontier AI-for-biology company positioned at the intersection of genomic data infrastructure and generative therapeutics design, targeting large unmet need in genetic disease treatment beyond CRISPR's scope.

Geographic focus

Global, UK/Europe headquartered with US life-sciences/pharma partnerships and NVIDIA (US) backing.

Patents and IP

Dedicated Senior VP of IP (ex-Tome Biosciences, Vertex, Biogen) suggests active patent strategy around discovered enzymes/proteins; no public patent numbers verified.

About Glen Gowers

Co-founder; background in Engineering Biology (Oxford University, Imperial College London, GSK). Led the first fully off-grid DNA sequencing expedition on Western Europe's largest ice cap.

Latest news about Basecamp Research

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