B

BenchSci

AI-powered preclinical R&D evidence platform

Overview

BenchSci uses artificial intelligence and visual machine learning to build a map of disease biology by integrating data from published experiments, internal data, vendor catalogs, and ontology datasets. Its ASCEND platform applies patented machine learning to extract evidence from these sources to help scientists generate hypotheses, plan experiments, and identify risks in preclinical research. Unlike tools that only provide datasets, BenchSci combines diverse data into a unified evidence map that directly guides preclinical planning and risk assessment for enterprise teams. Its goal is to improve the efficiency and output of preclinical R&D by enabling data-driven decision-making for research organizations.

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About BenchSci

Simplify's Rating
Why BenchSci is rated
B-
Rated B on Competitive Edge
Rated B on Growth Potential
Rated C on Differentiation

Industries

Data & AnalyticsEnterprise SoftwareAI & Machine LearningBiotechnology

Company Size

51-200

Company Stage

Series D

Total Funding

$161M

Headquarters

Toronto, Canada

Founded

2015

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What believers are saying

  • October 22, 2026 Patsnap integration adds patent freedom-to-operate workflows inside EMET.
  • September 28, 2026 ASM partnership gives EMET full-text access to all 17 journals.
  • September 2, 2026 argenx renewed BenchSci for two years, expanding European pharma penetration.

What critics are saying

  • May 28, 2026 layoffs cut 68 staff, following 2025's 83-person reduction.
  • Headcount fell 35% to 292, proving AI automation is shrinking BenchSci's own team.
  • In 2027, Google Cloud or Patsnap bundling adjacent tools can commoditize BenchSci into a feature.

What makes BenchSci unique

  • EMET unifies biology, patents, clinical, and literature intelligence inside one workflow.
  • BenchSci's Biological Evidence Knowledge Graph spans 850 million nodes and 2.2 billion edges.
  • Mikael Dolsten's June 2026 chairmanship signals deep Pfizer and Merck credibility.

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Funding

Total Funding

$161M

Below

Industry Average

Funded Over

7 Rounds

Series D funding is typically for companies that are already well-established but need more funding to continue their growth. This round is often used to stabilize the company or prepare for an IPO.
Series D Funding Comparison
Meet Average

Industry standards

$77M
$69.7M
$70M
$80M
$100M

Benefits

  • Remote-first culture
  • Equity options
  • 15 days vacation + additional day every year
  • Unlimited flex time
  • Comprehensive health & dental benefits
  • Psychotherapist services
  • Annual Learning & Development budget
  • Home office set-up budget
  • Wellness, lifestyle & productivity spending account

Growth & Insights and Company News

6 month growth

4%

1 year growth

2%

2 year growth

5%
PatSnap
Oct 22nd, 2026
Patsnap now available in BenchSci's EMET as companies partner to integrate Patent and Drug Development Intelligence into Unified Scientific Research Workflows.

Patsnap now available in BenchSci's EMET as companies partner to integrate Patent and Drug Development Intelligence into Unified Scientific Research Workflows. Preclinical scientists can now check the patent and clinical picture for targets using Patsnap data inside EMET. TORONTO, Oct. 22, 2026 - Patsnap, the global leader in AI innovation intelligence, and BenchSci, a leading provider of AI software for biopharma research and development, today announced that Patsnap's Life Sciences and Patent MCPs (Model Context Protocol servers) are now available in EMET, BenchSci's agentic research environment for preclinical drug discovery. Scientists using EMET can connect their Patsnap subscription and query Patsnap's drug, target, clinical, patent and literature data directly within EMET. For most preclinical teams, patent, clinical and competitive intelligence sits in separate systems from the environment where experiments are designed. Answering a question such as "who else has filed on this target" or "what is the clinical status of compounds in this class" has meant leaving the research workflow, running a separate search and bringing the answer back by hand. "Scientists do not want another tool. They want the right answer in the tool they already use. Putting Patsnap's life sciences and patent intelligence inside EMET means a researcher can ask whether a target is clinically crowded or freely patentable in the same breath as asking what the biology says, and get both answered," said Will Phillips, Head of Life Sciences, Patsnap. Patsnap brings to the partnership one of the industry's most comprehensive innovation datasets, spanning more than 200 million patents alongside drug, target, clinical trial, deal and scientific literature records. Structure and orchestration come from EMET, including the Biological Evidence Knowledge Graph of over 850 million nodes and 2.2 billion relationship edges, spanning publications, omics datasets, clinical trials, reagents, and experimental methods, harmonized against 38 million ontological entities. Patsnap is not just a connector in the system, additional scientific reasoning and intelligence built into EMET's orchestration layer enable EMET agents to determine when Patsnap intelligence is relevant to a task, drawing on patent, drug, target, clinical and literature data to inform their scientific workflows. "Scientists shouldn't have to leave their work to find out what's already been claimed. With Patsnap in EMET, the IP picture arrives alongside the biology, so it can shape the experiment rather than follow it," said Liran Belenzon, co-founder and CEO, BenchSci. What scientists can do with Patsnap in EMET: * Map the patent landscape around a target: see who else has filed on it before committing to experiments. * Check the clinical and competitive picture: find the clinical status of compounds in the same class. * Assess freedom to operate for a sequence without running a separate search. The integration builds on a year of momentum for Patsnap in life sciences, including the launch of its Life Sciences MCP servers for AI agents, the availability of its Synapse drug intelligence through FactSet Workstation (May 2026), and a strategic data partnership with Evolvus to expand curated modality intelligence for biopharma R&D and IP teams (August 2026). The Patsnap integration continues a period of rapid growth for EMET. BenchSci recently announced partnerships with Google Cloud (August 2026) and the American Society for Microbiology (September 2026), bringing ASM's journals into EMET. BenchSci was also named to Deloitte's 2025 Technology Fast 500. The integration will be demonstrated at a live webinar, Integration of Patent and Drug Development Intelligence into Unified Scientific Research Workflows on October 29, 2026. The integration is available today and requires a Patsnap MCP subscription, licensed directly through Patsnap. Learn more about Patsnap MCP's here. About Patsnap Patsnap is a leading global AI innovation intelligence company for IP, R&D and life sciences teams, founded in Singapore in 2007. Leveraging domain-specific AI agents and robust analytics tools, Patsnap empowers IP, R&D and Life Sciences teams to unlock insights, accelerate discoveries, and protect breakthroughs. As of October 2026, trusted by nearly 20,000 enterprises, law firms, and research institutions in over 50 countries, including one-third of the world's largest R&D spenders, Patsnap transforms how organizations innovate and make critical decisions. Learn more at www.patsnap.com. About BenchSci BenchSci is a world leader in AI software for biopharma research and development on a mission to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to help bring new medicines to patients faster. Patsnap apply AI to understand how disease biology works throughout the drug discovery pipeline to solve the number one reason drug discovery projects fail - getting the biology wrong. EMET, BenchSci's agentic AI workbench, unifies data, models, workflows, and scientific reasoning into a single environment purpose-built for preclinical R&D - giving every scientist an agentic team of PhD scientists to reason through disease biology behind every question. Backed by top-tier investors, including Generation Investment Management, iNovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google's AI fund), and Golden Ventures, BenchSci has raised over $200 million. Its platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. For more information about BenchSci, visit www.benchsci.com. Media contacts Kate White Diane Hepps, MPH

The Montreal Gazette
Sep 2nd, 2026
BenchSci announces two-year enterprise agreement with argenx to advance ai-driven preclinical drug discovery.

BenchSci announces two-year enterprise agreement with argenx to advance ai-driven preclinical drug discovery. Scientist-led competitive selection deepens BenchSci's presence in European biopharma TORONTO - BenchSci, a leading provider of AI software for biopharma research and development, today announced a two-year enterprise agreement with argenx, a global immunology innovation company, to deploy EMET, BenchSci's agentic research environment for preclinical drug discovery, within the organization. Selected through a competitive evaluation...

Associated Press
Aug 26th, 2026
BenchSci partners with Google Cloud to integrate AI models into drug discovery platform

BenchSci has partnered with Google Cloud in a multi-year initiative to establish Google as the primary infrastructure platform for EMET, BenchSci's agentic research environment for preclinical drug discovery. The partnership gives pharmaceutical scientists unified access to BenchSci's biological knowledge graph—containing 858 million nodes, 2.2 billion relationship edges, and 16 million closed-access scientific papers—alongside Google's life sciences AI models, including AlphaGenome and AlphaFold 3. The majority of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies by revenue are existing BenchSci customers. According to company data, 80% of users report 60% efficiency gains, with some research teams achieving up to 50x time savings on complex workflows. BenchSci has raised over $200 million from investors including Generation Investment Management, iNovia Capital, and TCV.

Associated Press
Jul 9th, 2026
Former Pfizer R&D chief Dr Mikael Dolsten named chairman of BenchSci's board

BenchSci, an AI software provider for biopharma research, has appointed Dr Mikael Dolsten as Chairman of its Board of Directors, effective June 2026. This marks the company's first Chairman role. Dr Dolsten joined BenchSci's board in July 2025, a year after retiring as Chief Scientific Officer and President of Pfizer Research & Development. During his 16 years at Pfizer, he oversaw approval of more than 36 medicines and vaccines. The appointment follows BenchSci's launch of EMET, an agentic research environment for preclinical R&D. Early results show 80% of EMET users report efficiency gains of up to 60%. BenchSci has raised over $200 million from investors including Generation Investment Management, Inovia Capital, and TCV. The platform is used by 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 research centres worldwide.

Contract Pharma
Dec 9th, 2025
BenchSci Extends ASCEND Agreement with Merck

BenchSci extends ASCEND agreement with Merck. The renewed agreement supports Merck's efforts to integrate AI more deeply into its scientific workflows. BenchSci, a leading provider of AI software for biopharma research and development, renewed its two-year contract with Merck, known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada. The renewed agreement supports Merck's efforts to integrate AI more deeply into its scientific workflows. With ongoing access to ASCEND, scientists can more easily evaluate evidence and surface insights that inform early development decisions. BenchSci's ASCEND is the first neurosymbolic AI platform built to help biopharma understand disease biology at scale. At its core is the Biological Evidence Knowledge Graph (BEKG) - an experimentally grounded foundation that unifies diverse data sources, including peer-reviewed literature, multi-omics datasets, and clinical trial evidence. By combining the BEKG with advanced foundation models, ASCEND powers AI copilots and co-scientists that deliver rapid, explainable insights and enable faster, more confident research decisions. ASCEND also harmonizes each partner's internal data to create a secure, proprietary, and customized map of disease biology, forming a living, evolving foundation for discovery. "Seeing Merck's teams use ASCEND to unravel disease biology, strengthen hypotheses, and make more evidence-driven decisions underscores the real scientific value AI can deliver. This renewed agreement gives us the opportunity to deepen that impact and continue advancing how complex biological questions are explored in early discovery," said Liran Belenzon, CEO and Co-Founder, BenchSci.

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