BigHat Biosciences raises $75M Series C for AI-designed biologics and agentic data platform

BigHat Biosciences announced a $75 million Series C (total funding $223 million), co-led by DFJ Growth and Premji Invest, to advance AI-designed therapeutics and its agentic data platform for rapid protein design.

HEALTH desk — a $75 million check, on $223 million raised in total, funds antibody drugs a computer helped design and the lab loop that designs the next ones. The lead cancer drug is already in a first human trial the company lists as a recent achievement, not as a dose that happened today.

Who wrote the check. The round was co-led by DFJ Growth and Premji Invest. The release prints DFJ Growth & Premji Invest, with an ampersand. Participants are Catalio Capital Management, LG Technology Ventures, and Sigmas Group, plus existing investors including 8VC, Alexandria Venture Investments, Amgen Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Discovery Ventures, GRIDS Capital, Intermountain Ventures, Eli Lilly and Company, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Quadrille Capital, and Section 32. Including means those are the names the release prints. It is not a promise that the list is every check. Catalio on a short card is Catalio Capital Management on the page. Merck GHIF on a short card is Merck Global Health Innovation Fund on the page. These names are the release’s. This desk did not read a subscription agreement.

What the money is for, in the release’s words. BigHat says it has built an autonomous AI and experimental platform that generates proprietary, fit-for-purpose biological data at scale to drive today’s leading frontier models for therapeutic design. Fit-for-purpose, here, means the data are built for the design job, not scraped from somewhere else. That gloss is this desk’s. The financing will support continued growth of that platform — the body calls it a platform for rapid data generation to power frontier intelligence for protein design — and advancement of the pipeline of AI-designed therapeutics, including BHB810 and BHB299, to key clinical readouts. A clinical readout is a result from a human trial. That gloss is this desk’s. The release prints the phrase and does not define it. The Business Wire headline’s phrase is “Leading Agentic Data Platform for Rapid Protein Design.” Agentic, here, means software that can take a series of steps, not only answer one question. That gloss is this desk’s. The body does not repeat the words “agentic data platform.” A later bullet says the company formed partnerships with frontier AI companies “to deploy state-of-the-art models for agentic therapeutic design.” Those are two sentences. Do not collapse the headline, the body, and the partnership bullet into one product name.

What RADS is, and what the 24 Sep release does not say. RADS is Reccy Antibody Design Studio. A company post dated 9/30/2025 introduces “Reccy Antibody Design Studio (RADS)” as BigHat’s integrated AI platform that orchestrates the models and datasets in use across its programs. The company platform page, read the same day as this filing, heads a section “Introducing RADS: BigHat’s AI-powered antibody design studio.” The 24 Sep financing release this desk read does not print RADS, Reccy, or Milliner. Milliner is the name on the platform page and on the 2025 post for the automated lab. The card image is a crop of the RADS product screen from the company site: a scatter plot and an inventory of platform programs, inside a purple margin. It is the design studio’s interface. It is not a sentence in the financing release, and it is not a trial result.

What BHB810 is, on the release, and what today is not. Under recent achievements, the release says BigHat dosed the first patient in a Phase 1 trial of its lead program, BHB810, a novel CDH17-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) for gastric cancer and other advanced gastrointestinal tumors. An antibody-drug conjugate is an antibody that carries a drug payload to cells with a chosen target. The release spells that out. CDH17 is the target the release names. The page does not spell those letters out. Gastric cancer is stomach cancer. That gloss is this desk’s. Phase 1 is the first stage of human testing. That gloss is this desk’s. The release says BHB810 is the first clinical program from BigHat’s AI discovery platform and one of the first AI-driven biologics to reach humans. A biologic, here, is a drug built from a protein, in this case an antibody. That gloss is this desk’s. The first-patient dose is listed as a recent achievement. The 24 Sep release does not say the dose happened on 24 Sep. Do not file it as today’s clinical event. This desk did not open an earlier dosing release, and it does not invent that page’s date. Peyton Greenside, co-founder and chief executive, said this financing will help advance the pipeline of BigHat-designed therapeutics, beginning with BHB810, “one of the first AI-designed biologics to reach the clinic.” That is his sentence on the release. A quote is not a dosing date. This desk did not interview him.

What BHB299 is, on the release. The same achievements list says BigHat advanced BHB299, an avidity-driven T-cell engager designed to selectively target CEACAM6-expressing solid tumors, and that it is nearing completion of preclinical development. A T cell is an immune cell. An engager is a molecule meant to bring that cell to a tumor cell. Those glosses are this desk’s. Avidity-driven is the release’s adjective. The page does not define it. CEACAM6 is the target the release names. The page does not spell those letters out. A solid tumor is a cancer that forms a mass, as opposed to a blood cancer. That gloss is this desk’s. Preclinical means the work before human trials. The company plans to begin human trials of BHB299 in 2027. 2027 is the year the release prints. It does not print a month. Beyond the two lead assets, the release says BigHat has a proprietary preclinical pipeline of antibody therapeutics for oncology and immunology. Oncology is cancer. Immunology is immune disease. Those glosses are this desk’s. These lines are the release’s. This desk did not see a study protocol.

The chief executive, as a quote, not as a patient count. Peyton Greenside said the mission is to design transformative therapeutics by combining frontier AI with the autonomous generation of gold-standard biological data. He said the financing advances both sides of that mission: the pipeline, beginning with BHB810, and the platform for AI-designed biologics. He said the company looks forward to partnerships with major technology and life sciences companies, and that with the investors’ support it can scale the platform and pipeline to deliver better medicines to patients more quickly. Transformative, gold-standard, and more quickly are his words. They are not a measured survival gain. The page also quotes Justin Kao, partner at DFJ Growth, and Marc Martin Casas, vice president of biotech and healthcare at Premji Invest. Their sentences are in Sources. This desk did not interview them.

The earlier money, and the partners, as the release states them. Since an $80 million Series B in 2022, the release says, BigHat has used the platform inside its own pipeline and in outside partnerships. It also says the company closed a $44 million Series B extension in 2025, led by pharma and strategic investors. The page does not name those 2025 leads. Do not invent them. On partners, the release says collaborations with Amgen, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie, and Lilly, including completion of a strategic collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, three project collaborations with Merck, and joining Lilly TuneLab beyond two therapeutic collaborations with Lilly. TuneLab is the name the release prints. The page does not explain it. These lines are the release’s history. They are not new checks in the Series C. This desk did not read the partnership contracts.

Plain English for the rest of the card. A Series C is a later venture round, after earlier raises. $75 million is the new round. $223 million is the total the company says it has raised. About one third is this desk’s reading of 75 against 223. An antibody is a protein that can lock onto a target on a cell. An ADC is an antibody carrying a drug payload. A T-cell engager is meant to pull an immune cell onto a tumor. Phase 1 is the first human stage. Preclinical is the work before that. BHB810 is the lead program, a CDH17-directed ADC for stomach cancer and other gut tumors, with a first patient already dosed in a Phase 1 trial the release lists as a recent achievement. BHB299 is the second program, a CEACAM6 T-cell engager, with human trials planned for 2027 and no month printed. RADS is Reccy Antibody Design Studio, the name on the company platform page and on a 30 Sep 2025 post. The 24 Sep financing release does not print RADS. Agentic data platform is the Business Wire headline’s phrase. The body says a platform for rapid data generation. 7:00 AM EDT is the syndication’s stamp, 11:00 a.m. UTC. The company newsroom does not print that hour. DFJ Growth and Premji Invest co-led. This filing is the 24 Sep financing.

PRIMARY here: BigHat’s 24 Sep 2026 company newsroom post, datelined San Mateo, California, September 24, 2026, with Posted: 9/24/2026 and no hour on the page this desk read — Tier A PRIMARY, the company’s own announcement. The FinancialContent page is the Business Wire syndication of that text, stamped 7:00 AM EDT, and it carries the long headline this desk did not see on the newsroom page. The $75 million Series C, the $223 million total, the co-leads, the participant list, the platform-for-rapid-data-generation sentence, BHB810 and BHB299 as the pipeline the proceeds name, the Phase 1 first-patient achievement for the CDH17-directed ADC, the BHB299 CEACAM6 engager and the 2027 plan, the Greenside quote, the $80 million Series B in 2022, the $44 million extension in 2025, and the named pharma collaborations are that release’s. RADS, Reccy, and Milliner are the platform page and the 30 Sep 2025 post. They are not sentences in the 24 Sep release. NOT claimed: that the first patient was dosed on 24 Sep, a date for that dose, a month inside 2027, that the financing release prints RADS, a definition of CDH17 or CEACAM6 or TuneLab or avidity beyond the release’s words, that this desk loaded businesswire.com, opened a lab, or read a contract, a cap table, a purchase price for a partnership, a stock tip, or investment advice. The card is the RADS product UI. Distinct from the already-filed verana-health-agent-claire, veeva-study-builder-agent, and grail-galleri-fda-panel.