Adaptyv raises €34.35M Series A for automated protein-design lab
The AMW Read
The Series A expands a protein-design validation provider with reported commercial traction, reinforcing the role of automated wet-lab capacity in AI-biology workflows.
Adaptyv raises €34.35M Series A for automated protein-design lab
Lausanne, Switzerland-based Adaptyv Bio has raised a €34.35 million ($40 million) Series A led by Highland Europe, with Ace Ventures, ByFounders, and Y Combinator participating. The company said revenue grew roughly 10x since its late-2024 €6.8 million ($8 million) seed round and that it now serves more than 100 customers, including frontier AI labs, top-five pharmaceutical companies, and AI-native drug-discovery startups. It plans to open a London lab and office in the fourth quarter of 2026, expand in Lausanne, roughly triple lab capacity by year-end, and grow from 25 to about 60 employees.
The funding addresses a central constraint in AI-driven biology: models can generate large numbers of protein candidates, but experimentally testing whether they express and bind remains slow and capacity-limited. Adaptyv combines in-house DNA synthesis, cell-free protein expression, surface plasmon resonance binding measurements, and quality control in an automated workflow. Its web platform and API allow customers, including AI agents, to submit experimental orders; the API is integrated with Boltz, Chai, Cradle, Tamarind, Latent Labs, and Benchling. In a company-reported benchmark with Anthropic, 354 of 1,320 Claude Science protein designs bound their target, a 26.8% average hit rate.
For builders, programmatic access to physical validation can shorten the design-test cycle, but binding data alone does not establish a therapeutic candidate's developability or function. For investors, the key question is whether Adaptyv can translate its capacity expansion into higher-value assays, including biophysical characterization, peptides, ADCs, degraders, and eventually cell-based function, rather than remaining concentrated in the narrower binding-measurement market.