Adaptyv

Adaptyv Bio is an Épalinges, Switzerland-based biotechnology company that builds fully automated cloud laboratories for protein engineering, enabling the rapid synthesis, testing, and validation of AI-designed proteins. The platform integrates synthetic biology, robotics, microfluidics, and cell-free systems to automate the entire design-test-learn cycle for researchers developing therapeutics, industrial enzymes, and advanced materials. Operating with a team of 25 employees, the organization has successfully synthesized and screened more than 10,000 proteins for over 30 pharmaceutical and biotech research teams. To support its expansion, the enterprise has secured approximately $10.5 million in total venture capital funding, including a recent $8 million seed round, backed by prominent institutional investors such as Y Combinator, Ace Ventures, ByFounders, and Founderful. Adaptyv Bio was founded in 2021 by co-founders Julian Englert, Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh Gutierrez, Amir Shahein, and Moustafa Houmani.

High-Level Overview

Adaptyv Bio is building a fully automated, cloud-based laboratory platform designed to accelerate protein engineering by seamlessly integrating AI-driven protein design with rapid experimental validation. Their platform combines advanced robotics, microfluidics, and synthetic biology to enable protein engineers to test thousands of AI-generated protein variants in parallel with drastically reduced reagent use and turnaround times as short as three weeks. This innovation addresses a critical bottleneck in protein engineering by providing high-quality experimental data that improves AI models and speeds up the design–test–learn cycle. Adaptyv serves biotech companies, pharmaceutical firms, AI research labs, and startups focused on therapeutic and industrial protein development, helping them validate protein designs faster, cheaper, and more reliably, thus fueling growth in AI-powered biotech innovation[1][2][3][4][6].

Origin Story

Founded by Julian Englert (CEO) and Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh (CTO), Adaptyv Bio emerged from the recognition that while AI can generate vast numbers of protein designs computationally, experimental validation remains slow, costly, and complex. Englert, with a background in materials science and biomedical technologies, and experience in health-tech startups, co-founded Adaptyv to build an integrated, automated protein foundry that miniaturizes and automates lab processes. Since its beta launch, Adaptyv has tested over 10,000 proteins with more than 30 partners worldwide, demonstrating significant improvements in protein success rates and validating its approach[3][5][7].

Core Differentiators

• Fully Automated Protein Foundry: Custom workcells miniaturize and parallelize experiments on microfluidic chips, replacing multiple lab instruments with a single automated setup.
• AI Integration: Experimental protocols can be written or optimized by AI, with all data automatically processed and fed back to improve machine learning models.
• Efficiency: Uses 1,000 times fewer reagents than traditional methods and can test thousands of proteins per day per setup.
• Speed and Transparency: Results turnaround in about three weeks with transparent per-protein pricing and real-time experiment tracking via a modern platform.
• Open Source Tools: Released ProteinFlow (for dataset creation) and Automancer (for running automated experiments), fostering community adoption and ecosystem growth[1][2][4][6].

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Adaptyv rides the convergence of AI, automation, and synthetic biology—a key trend driving the biorevolution. As AI models for protein design improve, experimental validation has become the limiting factor in bringing new proteins to market. Adaptyv’s platform addresses this gap by making wet lab validation scalable, programmable, and integrated with computational design. This timing is critical as demand for novel proteins in medicine, industrial enzymes, and materials surges. By enabling faster iteration cycles and lowering costs, Adaptyv accelerates innovation across biotech and pharma, influencing the broader ecosystem by democratizing access to high-throughput protein engineering infrastructure[1][3][4][7].

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Adaptyv plans to scale its lab capacity, diversify biochemical assays, and release APIs to connect AI design tools directly to their automated lab workflows. This will further streamline the design–test–learn loop and expand the range of protein applications supported. Trends such as increasing AI adoption in biotech, demand for sustainable enzymes, and personalized medicine will shape their growth trajectory. As Adaptyv matures, it is poised to become a foundational infrastructure provider in the AI-powered protein engineering space, potentially enabling a million new protein designers worldwide and transforming how biology is engineered[3][6][7].