· Venture Capital Tracker · investment-strategies · 4 min read
How Much Did Adaptyv Raise? $40M Series A, No Valuation
Adaptyv closed a $40 million Series A led by Highland Europe. Y Combinator, ACE Ventures, and byFounders returned. Valuation was not disclosed. The company says throughput grew more than 5x and names Chai Discovery, Boltz, Roche, and Novo Nordisk as customers.
VCT data record
Funding event facts
Source-backed financing and transaction details. Unknown terms remain undisclosed rather than estimated.
Adaptyv raises $40M Series A
Highland Europe led. ACE Ventures, byFounders, and Y Combinator returned. Valuation not disclosed.
- Event type
- Funding Round
- Event date
- Aug 25, 2026
- Stage / label
- Series A
- Amount
- $40M
- Confidence
- Company Disclosed
Company / target: Adaptyv
Lead: Highland Europe
Participants: Y Combinator , ACE Ventures , byFounders
Sources: adaptyvbio.com
Adaptyv raised $40 million Series A on August 25, 2026. Highland Europe led. Y Combinator, ACE Ventures, and byFounders returned.
Unexpected truth: there is no valuation. The product is not a model. It is a wet lab that takes AI-designed protein sequences and returns experimental data. Named customers on the company post include Chai Discovery, Boltz, Roche, and Novo Nordisk.
This page is for people deciding whether a YC S21 lab-automation print belongs next to July’s Chai $3.8 billion mark. Last verified August 31, 2026. Primary facts are the company Series A post.
Five-minute decision
| If you need… | Verdict |
|---|---|
| What happened | Funded. $40M Series A, Aug 25. No valuation. |
| Who led | Highland Europe. No /fund/ page here. |
| What Adaptyv is | Automated protein wet lab. Not a therapeutics issuer. |
| Whether it is shipping | Company: >5x lab throughput in a year; >100 customers. |
| Whether to diligence | Yes, if you underwrite wet-lab bottleneck for AI biology. No, if you need a mark first. |
Investigate further when: you believe AI protein design is already faster than physical testing, and a copyable workcell is the scarce asset.
Wait or pass when: you need a post-money, a named contract value, or U.S. clinical data.
What happened
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Company | Adaptyv Bio (adaptyvbio.com); Lausanne / Biopôle; YC S21; founders Julian Englert, Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh Gutierrez |
| Round | $40M Series A · no valuation · company post Aug 25; GGBa recap Aug 31 |
| Lead | Highland Europe (no /fund/ page) |
| Returning | ACE Ventures, byFounders, YC |
| Prior priced stack | $8M seed, ACE-led, Sep 25, 2025 (ACE post). Do not use “late 2024” from recaps without checking ACE. |
| Use of proceeds | Company: double Lausanne team; London office and lab Q4 2026. GGBa: roughly triple lab capacity by year-end; team 25 → ~60. |
| Revenue / valuation | Not in the Series A post. |
Do not invent a Highland Europe /fund/ page. Do not add ACE or byFounders as directory funds.
What Adaptyv actually does
Job: take a digital protein sequence in, return wet-lab measurements out — so AI designers are not queued behind a 20-designs-per-target lab.
Company (Series A post): synthetic biology + nanofluidics + ML; throughput >5x over the past year; >100 customers spanning bio-AI labs and pharma.
Named customers (company): Chai Discovery, Boltz, Roche, Novo Nordisk.
Anthropic demo (company): Claude designed proteins, sent them to the lab, and got experimental data back. That is a collaboration claim, not a drug.
GGBa, writing August 31, adds the capacity plan (copy the workcell; London Q4; 25 to ~60 people) and says the seed was $8 million in 2025.
Adaptyv vs Chai vs AusperBio — what differs
| Adaptyv | Chai Discovery | AusperBio | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live print | $40M A, Aug 25, no valuation | $400M C @ $3.8B, Jul 14 | $120M C, Aug 27, no valuation |
| What they sell | Automated validation | Molecular-design models | HBV drug candidates |
| Named proof | Chai, Boltz, Roche, Novo (company) | Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer (company) | Phase 3 in China; not approved |
| Directory funds | YC | Index, Sequoia | None of this syndicate |
Same 2026 bio+AI tape. Three different balance sheets. Adaptyv is the lab Chai-class designers can call.
Worked numbers (company figures)
Setup: ACE disclosed $8 million seed (Sep 2025). This close is $40 million.
Move: $40M / $8M = 5x the last priced equity check.
Punch: the A is large versus the seed. It does not produce a valuation, an ARR, or a hit-rate you can take into a term sheet. Do not add the 2021–22 pre-seed into a fake 2026 total unless Adaptyv states one.
When not to use this page
- Do not invent a valuation.
- Do not treat Roche / Novo / Chai / Boltz logos as disclosed contract values.
- Do not paste EU-Startups’ ~10x revenue, Claude 26.8% hit rate, or Proteinbase 10,000 designs as if they were in the Series A post. Those are secondary recap figures.
- Do not date the seed as late 2024 against ACE’s September 25, 2025 post.
- Do not write Adaptyv as a therapeutics company. It is lab infrastructure.
- Do not invent
/fund/pages for Highland Europe, ACE Ventures, or byFounders.
Where to go next
Entity: Adaptyv. Customer overlap: Boltz · Chai $400M / $3.8B. Same-month therapeutics: AusperBio $120M. YC: /fund/y-combinator · Winter 2027 apply dates. Day tape: August 31 VC news. Month: August 2026 VC news.
Follow Venture Capital Tracker in Google
Add VCT as a preferred source to make our venture-capital coverage easier to find in Google Search.
Last updated:
Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.
