Rivercell, a Paris-based biotechnology and artificial intelligence company, has launched with US$25 million in Seed funding to build data platforms and AI models that predict how human cells respond to treatment. The round was led by HV, with participation from HCVC, Alven, and Bpifrance Digital Venture. The company aims to generate high-resolution data at scale and train a world model of the cell to accelerate drug discovery.
Founding Team and Scientific Leadership
Rivercell was started in summer 2025 by CEO Yann Fleureau, the engineer and entrepreneur who previously co-founded and led Cardiologs before its nine-figure acquisition by Philips in 2021. He is joined by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Eric Durand, former Director of Data Science in oncology at Novartis and Chief Data Science Officer at Owkin. Durand also co-founded Bioptimus, which raised US$76 million, giving him direct insight into the data that current biological world models lack.
Scientific advisors Dr. Charlotte Bunne of EPFL and Professor Fabian Theis of Helmholtz Munich have also joined the company's Scientific Advisory Board. Their expertise supports Rivercell's ambition to combine large-scale perturbation experiments with AI simulation. The leadership team combines experience from AI diagnostics, pharmaceutical data science, and biological foundation models.
Data Engine and AI Virtual Cell
The company is building a proprietary platform that produces interventional, time-resolved, multimodal single-cell data at a scale not currently available. Rivercell describes this infrastructure as the GPU for the bio data center of the future. The data will train its AI virtual cell, a world model designed to predict how drugs and genetic changes affect human cells in silico.
Rivercell's approach is indication-agnostic, meaning it can be applied across oncology, immunology, rare diseases, and cardiometabolic disease. The model learns underlying rules of cellular response rather than features of a single disease. This horizontal discovery engine could reduce the need for physical wet-lab experiments and reshape how drug development is approached.
Strategic Importance and Investor Perspective
Developing a single drug can take years and be costly, with the pharmaceutical industry investing nearly US$300 billion in research and development each year. The company argues that realizing AI's potential in biology depends on diverse, multimodal, time-resolved data that does not yet exist at scale. Rivercell is creating that foundation through its automated wet lab in Paris and purpose-built data generation platform.
HV Principal Maxi Pethö-Schramm said AI is already rewriting understanding of the chemistry of life, and the next frontier is predicting how cells behave. He noted that a full-stack approach combining a novel platform, automated wet labs, and world models is required. Pethö-Schramm added that Rivercell's positioning in Paris's AI ecosystem and Basel's pharma cluster makes it uniquely suited to lead.
Funding Allocation and Long Term Vision
The US$25 million Seed round will fund the scale-up of Rivercell's proprietary data generation platform and the expansion of its Paris wet lab. It will also support the launch of the AI Virtual Cell program. The company's long-term goal is to fundamentally change drug discovery by accelerating and redesigning how treatments are developed.
Yann Fleureau, co-founder and CEO of Rivercell, called a world model of the cell the opportunity of the century in medicine. He said the missing piece is data showing how cells change over time and under treatment, captured through multiple lenses and layers at scale. Fleureau emphasized that building this data engine in Europe is strategic for the continent's place in AI and biology.
Rivercell's launch brings together a proven founding team, a dedicated data generation platform, and an ambitious AI model to address a critical bottleneck in drug discovery. The company's focus on time-resolved cellular response data could provide the foundation for more predictive and efficient therapeutic development. With institutional backing and scientific advisory support, Rivercell is positioned to advance Europe's role in the intersection of AI and biology.