AI Virtual Cell Firm Huayuan Zhiyin Lands Million-Seed Round, Self-Developed Wise-Perturb Model for Human Efficacy Prediction

Huayuan Zhiyin, an AI virtual cell (AIVC) company, completed a multi-million RMB seed round led by Shuimu Venture Capital. Funds will advance multimodal sequencing, expand collaborations with top-tier hospitals, and grow the team. Their proprietary Wise-Perturb model targets human efficacy prediction, overcoming single-RNA-seq and immortalized cell line limitations. It integrates single-cell multiomics (DNA, transcriptome, proteome) into a three-tier pyramid data base with cell-type recognition, enabling zero-shot cross-cell, cross-cancer, and cross-drug predictions. Validation shows it predicts ovarian cancer PDX drug response from breast cancer data, matching animal tests, and stratifies NSCLC patients for osimertinib therapy with Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Cancer Hospital. The company has secured contracts with leading hospitals, global pharma, and AI biotech firms, with revenue from preclinical pipeline assessment and patient stratification for clinical trials. Future plans include establishing joint labs for drug repurposing and target discovery, and a risk-sharing model with pharma for post-launch revenue sharing. Post-funding, they aim to partner with 30+ top-tier hospitals in 1-3 years to collect indication-specific data and train specialized sub-models.