Cooley advised Exscientia, a clinical-stage pharmatech company, on its $225 million Series D funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, which is also providing an additional $300 million equity commitment that can be drawn at Exscientia's discretion. Lawyers Claire Keast-Butler and Tom Goodman led the Cooley team advising Exscientia.

The Series D round also included participation from Novo Holdings, funds managed by BlackRock, Mubadala Investment Company, Farallon Capital, Casdin Capital, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Pivotal bioVenture Partners, Laurion Capital, Hongkou and Bristol Myers Squibb. Exscientia, which uses artificial intelligence to design patient-based drugs, will leverage the new capital to advance its proprietary pipeline through clinical testing and continue expanding its technology platform toward autonomous drug design.

"All of our investors share Exscientia's vision to discover better drugs, faster, through AI and automation," Andrew Hopkins, CEO of Exscientia, said in a news release. "Our patient-first AI platform has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to precision design drugs that address patients' needs. With the Series D completed, the quality and depth of our shareholder base allows us the freedom to continue to scale both our platform and pipeline."

Exscientia is committed to discovering and designing the best possible medicines in the fastest and most effective manner. The company is the first to progress AI-designed small molecules into the clinical setting and repeatedly demonstrate the ability of AI to transform how drugs are created.