Bison Ventures

Congrats to the InnerPlant team for #CropVoice being named one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2024! InnerPlant's technology translates plant physiology into early stress alerts, enabling farmers to quickly take action to protect crop yields, reduce chemical use, and improve farm resiliency. We're proud to support them in reenvisioning a better agriculture system. #TIMEBestInventions #AgTech    https://lnkd.in/gzsfFXxR 

We are excited to announce our founding investment in Passkey Therapeutics led Bruce Beutel, William Chen, and Soumya Ray as they emerge from stealth today with $20M in funding to unearth drivers of complex disease. At Bison Ventures, we've long believed in the power of computational tools combined with a unique biological insight -- Passkey's platform is a perfect example of that synergy. By using novel computational and experimental methods to discover multigene drivers of disease, termed 'multilogs,' and design Synergystic Multifunctional Therapeutics (SMThs), Passkey is tackling the complexity of biology in an entirely new way. We are thrilled to back the entire Passkey team as they redefine what's possible in drug discovery. #techbio #PasskeyThereapeutics #Biotech #Drugdiscovery #VentureCapital

With ChatGPT’s success sparking a rush to build vertical-specific foundation models, biotech is at crossroads. Last week, Ben Hemani took the stage at Fierce Biotech to discuss where the real opportunities are for foundation models in biotech — and why many attempts will fall short — in his talk, "BioPharmaGPT: A VC’s Perspective on Fluff vs Substance in AI-Enabled Drug Discovery." Thank you Fierce Biotech for having us! #BiotechInnovation #AI #BioPharma #DrugDiscovery #VentureCapital #FoundationModels #FierceBiotech

Where on earth is all the energy for #AI going to come from? Our co-founder Ben Hemani breaks down what types of investments are going to pave the way for a more sustainable AI-powered future in this article for Cipher News. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gm28ned9 #Sustainability #Innovation #Climatetech #BisonVentures

Zyphra has been named on Business Insider as one of the most promising startups of 2024! Congrats to Krithik Puthalath and team for demonstrating how much room there is for disruption in #AI foundation models. We're excited to see what they do next. https://lnkd.in/gBycVjqh

Congrats to InnerPlant on securing $30M in Series B funding! Your innovative approach to plant health monitoring is groundbreaking. Proud to be part of your journey towards transforming agriculture. Read more about it: https://lnkd.in/g62W4EaX #Innovation #Agritech #Innerplant

Bison's own Tom Biegala and Ben Hemani were featured in Fortune, sharing their insights on the AI boom and the innovative areas they are closely monitoring. Discover more about what they and other VCs are eager to see in the AI space: https://lnkd.in/gHzQXvcF

Super excited to share we’ve opened a Seattle office focused on advancing the state of the art in Foundation Models for Robotics. Thrilled to have Michael Vogelsong on board to lead our work and partnerships in this space. Anyone who’s had the good fortune to work with Michael recognizes he’s consistently been ahead of the curve in applying vector search, human preference reinforcement learning, transformer architecture to problems ranging from Amazon’s shopping experience, to manipulation for robots, to improving cancer treatment protocols to visual LLMs. Equally excited to be working again with Siddhartha Srinivasa and his lab at UW. Sidd is one of the world’s foremost researchers in robotics, consistently producing world-class research that blends fundamental insights into problems like data efficiency with real-world problems like novel manipulation architectures. Robotics is the killer app for AI. Our mission is to be the first to deploy robotic intelligence at scale working in collaboration with humans in every sector from logistics to manufacturing to hospitals, airports and stadiums. Today’s announcement combined with our production deployments puts us well down the path toward that vision.

Bison's founding partner, Ben Hemani, discussed the future of robotics, new portfolio company Collaborative Robotics, and funding A.I. startups with Fox Business Network. Catch the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/gsebjTEy

Congrats to Cobot and Brad Porter on their Series B announcement today! Proud to support this seasoned, passionate team as they redefine the future of human-robot interaction.