REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citrine Informatics, the developer of the first materials artificial intelligence (AI) operating platform, announced today $20M in Series B funding. The round was co-led by Prelude Ventures and Innovation Endeavors with participation from Moore Strategic Ventures, Next47, and other investors. The financing will help support commercial growth of the Citrine Platform, the company’s core product, as well as the expansion in business development and sales efforts in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
The technological innovation behind the Citrine Platform dramatically reduces the time and cost of materials and chemicals development by combining materials-specific data handling and storage, scalable compute for AI and data processing, along with modular composable AI units optimized to predict materials behavior. The Citrine Platform has helped some of the world’s largest organizations, including chemicals and product companies, hit overall R&D milestones in 50-70% percent of the time originally forecast and has enabled totally new materials product lines.
“Speed to market and the need to customize products are critical factors driving the materials and chemicals industry today. Customers are pushing the industry for bespoke requirements at a faster pace,” said Greg Mulholland, CEO, Citrine Informatics. “Innovative companies are investing in the Citrine Platform to create an internal AI capability and meet this customer demand. This technology is changing the speed at which companies can develop green, efficient, performant materials and chemicals and shaping how companies organize themselves. We are proud to partner with investors who share our mission to push the industry forward and to continue to enable the next generation of sustainable innovation.”
Citrine was founded by a team of seasoned materials scientists. The management team includes Mr. Greg Mulholland, CEO, and Dr. Bryce Meredig, Chief Science Officer. Citrine’s technology has been deployed at some of the largest global chemicals and materials companies including Panasonic, LANXESS and BASF.
“The materials and chemicals industry is changing rapidly based on the need to produce products faster and more sustainably,” said Mark Cupta, Partner at Prelude Ventures. “Citrine’s platform, a unique combination of domain-specific data management and AI, is a force hastening the revolution already underway.”
“The next generation of advanced materials takes far too long to develop today. Citrine’s approach - combining new and under-leveraged sources of data, advanced computation, and engineering - dramatically reduces the time and cost of materials development in an industry ripe for change,” said Scott Brady, Partner at Innovation Endeavors. “We believe that Citrine will continue to make big impacts in the materials space, and we are excited to expand our support.”
About Citrine Informatics
Citrine Informatics technology accelerates the materials development cycle by combining materials data domain-specific AI. The Citrine Platform is designed to be the operating system of the materials and chemicals industry. Citrine is headquartered in Redwood City, CA. For more information visit citrine.io and follow us at @Citrine_io.
About Prelude Ventures
Prelude Ventures was founded in 2013 as a new platform for venture investing in the cleantech sector. The platform combines a long-term commitment to the sector, willingness to accept informed risks, the capital to enable companies to develop on appropriate timelines and a fundamental emphasis on venture-level returns. For more information visit preludeventures.com.
About Innovation Endeavors
Innovation Endeavors is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in visionary founders, transformational technologies and emergent ecosystems. The firm’s central investment thesis, the Super Evolution, combines data, leading-edge computation, and advanced engineering to transform industries, from agriculture and logistics to life sciences, transportation and more. Innovation Endeavors is headquartered in Silicon Valley. Its investments include: Fabric; Freenome; Planet; Plenty; SoFi; Uber; and Zymergen. For more information, visit www.InnovationEndeavors.com.