Warp Sciences emerged from stealth on October 22, 2026, with $215 million in funding to build a U.S.-based chemistry contract research organisation (CRO) that combines expert chemists, AI and robotics to make and test the molecules drug research teams need. The round, led by Lightspeed, values the company at $865 million post-money, according to the company.
The founding team is built for the pitch. Kevin Weil, most recently OpenAI’s chief product officer and VP of science, is co-founder and CEO. Solomon “Sol” Reisberg, formerly in medicinal chemistry leadership at Terremoto Biosciences, is chief scientific officer. Manohar “Mano” Paluri, a VP at Meta Superintelligence Labs and founding member of FAIR, is CTO. DJ Patil, a founding executive at Devoted Health and the first U.S. chief data scientist, is COO.
Lead Optimisation First, Then A Fully Automated Lab
Warp’s initial service focuses on lead optimisation analog synthesis: making variations of a promising molecule so scientists can compare them as they search for a drug candidate. A promising design is only the beginning of drug discovery — scientists have to make it, test it and use what they learn to decide what comes next — and that make-and-test work is what Warp sells.
Experienced chemists will guide experiments at first, while the lab is increasingly automated by AI and robotics, with AI models trained on data from the physical experiments themselves. To train that AI, Warp plans to capture data from its own chemists as they work, and its early hires add robotics experience from Genesis, Skild AI and 1X and scientific expertise from Genentech and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Paluri described the goal as a closed loop: every experiment should make the next one smarter, with the software, AI and robotics built alongside the lab.
“AI has dramatically accelerated software engineering and mathematics, but it has yet to make the same impact in the physical sciences,” Weil said. “Chemistry and biology move forward when you make something, test it and learn from the result. If we want to build more capable AI for science, we need to generate real-world data at scale.”
Bringing Chemistry Work Back From Overseas CROs
The market Warp is chasing is the outsourced chemistry work U.S. biopharma has historically sent to Chinese firms such as WuXi AppTec. In a 2024 survey by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, 74% of respondents reported contracts with Chinese companies for preclinical and clinical services, according to Reuters reporting cited by the company. The BIOSECURE Act, signed into law in December 2025, established a framework for restrictions on federal procurement and funding involving designated biotechnology companies of concern.
Reisberg said he had worked with overseas chemistry partners that delivered speed and value but still worried about protecting the intellectual property behind his programs; Warp aims to offer the same calibre of service in the U.S., with IP protection at the centre and without the price premium U.S. boutique CROs currently demand. Patil stressed that Warp is not developing drugs of its own: customers determine which molecules to pursue and retain control of their programs, while Warp builds the infrastructure. It is the same infrastructure-first pattern seen in OpenAI’s GPT-Rosalind science work and in foundation-model rounds like Flapping Airplanes’ $1 billion Series A.
Lightspeed led the round, with participation from Premji Invest, Mayfield, IVP, Lux, Conviction, Menlo Ventures, 01 Advisors, Standard, Lowercarbon Capital, Gigascale Capital, Angular Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Uncork Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Matter VP, Zero Shot Fund, SignalFire and Moxxie Ventures. Angel investors include Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen, Anthropic Labs co-lead Mike Krieger, Figma CEO Dylan Field and former Tesla robotics VP Milan Kovac.
Why It Matters
Warp Sciences matters because it applies the AI-infrastructure playbook to a physical bottleneck: models cannot optimise molecules that nobody has made. By owning the lab that generates experimental data — rather than licensing data or simulating it — Warp is building the feedback loop its founders say AI for science has been missing, and it is doing so inside the U.S. at the moment trade and security policy is pushing drug companies to re-shore chemistry work. An $865 million valuation at launch, for a services company with no drug pipeline of its own, shows investors now price that data-generating infrastructure the way they priced compute. For the wider AI-for-science field — from Legora in legal AI to the labs hiring out of OpenAI and Meta — Warp is a test of whether automated labs can compound learning faster than the overseas CRO model they aim to replace.
Background
Warp Sciences was founded by veterans of OpenAI, Meta, Terremoto Biosciences, Devoted Health and the White House science office, and it has no proprietary drug pipeline by design. Weil led OpenAI’s product and science efforts before leaving to build the company; the venture sits at the intersection of two shifts — AI labs pushing into the physical sciences, and U.S. policy under the BIOSECURE Act framework reshaping where pharmaceutical research work can be done. Its website is warp.xyz, and the company is hiring across chemistry, robotics and AI.
Source: Business Wire (Warp Sciences), Bloomberg
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