Investors Bet $235 Million on Bringing AI to Scientific Research (2)

The latest artificial intelligence unicorn is Lila Sciences, a biotechnology company that promises to speed the rate of scientific discovery using new AI tools.

The startup announced it had raised $235 million at a roughly $1.23 billion valuation.

Lila emerged from stealth mode in March after a $200 million seed round. It has developed AI trained on academic literature in areas that include materials, chemistry and life sciences, and is creating labs to test the models’ hypotheses.

The new funding will allow the Massachusetts-based company to expand the size and number of facilities — or what it calls AI science ...