Rivercell
Category: AI in Biotech / Drug Discovery
Paris-based biotech/AI company that generates proprietary perturbational, time-resolved, multimodal single-cell data to train an AI Virtual Cell world model that predicts how human cells respond to drugs and genetic changes. Rivercell was founded in 2025. The company is led by Yann Fleureau. Based in Paris, France. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $25M. Latest round: Seed. Key investors include HV Capital, HCVC, Alven, Bpifrance Digital Venture, angels from Twist Bioscience, DNA Script, Agilent and Abivax/Ipsen.
- Founded
- 2025
- Headquarters
- Paris, France
- Team size
- 11-50
- Total funding
- $25M
Value proposition
Move treatment discovery into software. Rivercell pairs a proprietary data engine with an AI world model of the cell to predict cellular responses in silico, which reduces wet-lab experimentation and speeds up drug discovery.
Products and solutions
AI Virtual Cell (AIVC) world model of the cell, proprietary programmable data-generation platform combining live-cell imaging with endpoint gene expression (described as the 'GPU for the bio data center'), automated wet lab in Paris run as a lab-in-the-loop system
Unique value
Full-stack, indication-agnostic virtual cell trained on data generated in-house on purpose-built instruments. The data is perturbational, multimodal, longitudinal and context-diverse.
Target customer
Pharmaceutical and biotech R&D organizations, and partners running perturbation experiments and drug discovery programs
Industries served
Drug discovery, biotech, pharma R&D across oncology, immunology, rare diseases and cardiometabolic disease
Technology advantage
Proprietary purpose-built hardware platform for data generation (thin films, fluidics, live-cell imaging); lab-in-the-loop design in which the model chooses the experiments; founders with an AI exit (Cardiologs) and pharma data science leadership (Novartis, Owkin, Bioptimus); footing in both Paris's AI ecosystem and Basel's pharma cluster
How they differentiate
Existing perturbation atlases are largely static and transcriptomic-only. Rivercell instead tracks the same cells over time with live-cell imaging linked to gene expression, across diverse cell types, genetic backgrounds and environments, on its own purpose-built instruments.
Main competitors
Xaira Therapeutics (X-Cell virtual cell model), Tahoe Therapeutics (large-scale perturbative single-cell data), Noetik (OCTO-vc)
Key partnerships
Scientific Advisory Board: Dr. Charlotte Bunne (EPFL) and Prof. Fabian Theis (Helmholtz Munich / Helmholtz AI)
Major milestones
Started summer 2025 by Yann Fleureau, Eric Durand joined as co-founder and CSO in 2026, emerged from stealth on 2026-10-07 with a $25M Seed round led by HV, named Charlotte Bunne and Fabian Theis to its Scientific Advisory Board
Growth metrics
Emerged from stealth in October 2026 with $25M Seed funding; hiring scientists and engineers in Paris across thin films, fluidics, biotechnology and AI
Market positioning
European full-stack AI virtual cell player combining a data engine, an automated wet lab and a world model; positioned as horizontal discovery infrastructure for pharma
Geographic focus
Europe (Paris, Basel) with worldwide partnerships; competes globally with US virtual-cell companies
About Yann Fleureau
Co-founder & CEO of Cardiologs, an AI cardiac diagnostics company acquired by Philips in 2021 in a nine-figure exit; co-founder of Numina, a non-profit building AI for frontier reasoning in math and physics; École Polytechnique and UC Berkeley graduate; MIT Innovators Under 35 honoree.
Latest news about Rivercell
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Official website: https://www.rivercell.ai