Isomorphic Labs
London AI drug-discovery company; raised $2.1bn Series B in May 2026, majority Alphabet subsidiary.
Isomorphic Labs, Alphabet's London AI drug-discovery subsidiary, closed a $2.1bn Series B on 12 May 2026, the largest single fundraise in UK life-sciences history, with the UK's Sovereign AI Unit joining as an equity co-investor for the first time.
Last refreshed: 22 July 2026 · Appears in 2 active topics
Why did UK taxpayers co-invest alongside Google's parent in a $2.1bn drug-discovery round?
Timeline for Isomorphic Labs
Mentioned in: State fund surfaces on CuspAI cap table
UK Startups and InnovationMentioned in: CuspAI raising $400m on Bezos money
UK Startups and InnovationMentioned in: Orbital's $50m raise has no UK lead
UK Startups and InnovationClosed $2.1bn Series B with SAIU as minority equity co-investor
UK Startups and Innovation: Sovereign AI unit backs Alphabet-owned labBackground
Isomorphic Labs was founded in 2021 by Sir Demis Hassabis, co-creator of AlphaFold, and operates as a majority subsidiary of Alphabet, applying the machine-learning approach that solved protein folding to small-molecule drug design. Headquartered in London's Knowledge Quarter, its pipeline spans oncology, rare diseases and metabolic disorders, run as Alphabet's dedicated life-sciences research Arm in Europe.
Its May 2026 Series B, led by Thrive Capital with Alphabet, GV, CapitalG, MGX and Temasek participating, was notable less for its size than for who joined it: the UK Sovereign AI Unit's stake marked the unit's first cheque into a majority foreign-owned company, a deliberate departure from its earlier practice of backing only domestically controlled firms .
That decision signals the SAIU prioritising strategic capability over ownership purity, treating Isomorphic's Alphabet-backed research capacity as worth securing even without control. Critics have questioned whether an undisclosed, minority cheque into a $2.1bn round amounts to meaningful sovereign leverage, a question that remains open given the government has withheld the cheque's size as commercially sensitive.