Radical Numerics, an AI research lab, has secured $50 million in a seed funding round led by Emergence Capital. The company aims to build general biological intelligence to master the code of life for both health and biodefense applications. This funding will accelerate the development of its next-generation genome language model, Omnii, which was also recently previewed.
Pioneering Generative Genomics
The company was founded by the team credited with creating the field of generative genomics, including CEO Eric Nguyen and Chief AI Scientist Michael Poli. Their previous work includes developing Evo, the first AI model capable of both reading and writing DNA at scale. This foundational research established that AI could not only interpret but also generate functional biological code.
A significant breakthrough occurred when scientists used the team's Evo model to generate the world's first complete AI-designed genome. This achievement, a bacteriophage virus, demonstrated a critical turning point where AI transitioned from a descriptive to a generative tool. It proved that models trained to read genomes had effectively learned how to write a working one.
Introducing the Omnii Model
With its new funding, Radical Numerics is advancing its technology by introducing Omnii, its next-generation model. Omnii is designed to surpass earlier models by leveraging a new multi-hybrid architecture and a massive two-million-token context window. It is also the first large-scale genome model to incorporate alignment methods, making it a more reliable scientific instrument.
Early evaluations show that Omnii sets a new state-of-the-art performance, outperforming every specialized model family in the space. It demonstrates particularly strong capabilities in decoding noncoding and regulatory regions of the genome, which are crucial for understanding human disease. This leap in performance opens new avenues for diagnostics and therapeutic design.
A Dual Mandate for Health and Security
Radical Numerics operates under a dual mandate, recognizing that powerful biological AI presents both immense opportunities and significant risks. For human health, the company is partnering with a diagnostics firm to apply Omnii for early cancer detection. The model's ability to integrate multiple molecular signals could lead to more accurate and timely diagnoses.
On the biodefense front, the company is addressing concerns that AI could be used to design biological weapons. Radical Numerics is collaborating with a U.S. national laboratory to pilot Omnii for advanced biosurveillance and pathogen detection. The model is being developed to identify "deepfake" pathogens and other AI-generated biological threats.
Building a New Kind of AI Lab
The new capital will be used to build the infrastructure required to scale the world's most powerful biological AI models. This includes a data center under construction that will be equipped with NVIDIA's latest Blackwell GPUs. The company emphasizes that this requires a new approach that integrates physical biological data and novel alignment methods.
Gordon Ritter of lead investor Emergence Capital highlighted the company's unique approach to safety and responsibility. He noted that Radical Numerics has integrated biosecurity into its foundation rather than treating it as an afterthought. This combination of frontier AI capability and security expertise was a key factor in the investment.
The $50 million investment marks a significant milestone for Radical Numerics as it pursues its goal of mastering biological code. By simultaneously advancing AI for therapeutic design and building robust biodefenses, the company is positioning itself at the forefront of responsible innovation. This dual strategy underscores the belief that biological AI will be a defining technology demanding both ambition and caution.