Latent Labs

Latent Labs Debuts Web-Based AI Platform to Democratize Protein Design

July 21, 2025 - Just six months after emerging from stealth mode with $50 million in funding, Latent Labs has unveiled a web-based AI platform designed to revolutionize protein design.

According to Latent Labs CEO and founder Simon Kohl, the company’s AI model has “achieved state-of-the-art on different metrics” when validating the proteins it engineered in physical laboratory settings. Kohl, who previously co-led DeepMind’s AlphaFold protein design team, explained that in AI, “state-of-the-art” (SOTA) denotes the best performance currently achieved in a specific domain.

“We have computational ways of assessing how good the designs are,” Kohl told TechCrunch. He added that a significant proportion of proteins generated by the model are likely to be viable in laboratory tests.

Latent Labs’ foundational biology platform, LatentX, allows researchers at academic institutions, biotech startups, and pharmaceutical firms to create novel proteins directly in their web browser using natural language prompts.

LatentX goes beyond natural proteins by designing entirely new molecules, such as nanobodies and antibodies, with precise atomic structures. This capability could accelerate the development of new therapeutics at an unprecedented pace.

Kohl emphasized how LatentX differs from AlphaFold: “AlphaFold is a model for protein structure prediction. It allows you to visualize existing structures, but it doesn’t let you generate new proteins,” he said.

Unlike AI-driven drug discovery companies such as Xaira, Recursion, or DeepMind spinout Isomorphic Labs—which focus on developing proprietary medicines—Latent Labs plans to license its platform for use by external organizations.

“Not every company is in a position to build their own AI models, to have their own AI infrastructure, and to have their own AI teams,” Kohl noted.

Currently, LatentX is offered for free, though Kohl revealed that advanced features and capabilities will eventually be available for a fee.

Other players providing open-source AI models for drug discovery include Chai Discovery and EvolutionaryScale.

Latent Labs’ investors include Radical Ventures, Sofinnova Partners, Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, and ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/21/latent-labs-launches-web-based-ai-model-to-democratize-protein-design/