# From AI to superintelligence: Lila just raised $235M to turbocharge its 'AI Science Factories

> Flagship Pioneering's Lila Sciences just raised $235M in Series A to build AI-and-robotics-powered "science factories" — and I think the full-stack automation thesis is more compelling than AI-alone approaches for drug discovery.

URL: https://www.ch-healthtech.com/insights/ai-superintelligence-lila-just-raised-235m-turbocharge-its-ai-science-factories
Markdown: https://www.ch-healthtech.com/insights/ai-superintelligence-lila-just-raised-235m-turbocharge-its-ai-science-factories.md
Published: 2025-09-22
Updated: 2026-05-06
Author: Christian Hein
Tags: technology/artificial-intelligence, industry/tech-bio, function/innovation-management, activity/series-a-seed-funding, therapeutic_area/oncology, function/pre-clinical-research

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From AI to superintelligence: Lila just raised $235M to turbocharge its 'AI Science Factories'

Good old AI isn't good enough any more for VCs. If we can't have AGI just yet, how about a bit of "superintelligence"?

Beyond the nerdy buzzwords, Flagship Pioneering's Boston-based tech-bio Lila Sciences has recently raised another $235M in Series A after a $200M seed round earlier this year, to build something that is actually really interesting: the idea that science (still a very artisanal and manual process) can be automated as much as possible with a powerful combination of AI and robotics.

I can get behind that thesis. One of the key bottlenecks in AI for drug discovery is that even the best models can only get you so far when most of the lab process is still manual and fragmented (and high-quality training data is scarce). This is why I'm still a bit skeptical about claims that AI alone will get new drugs to market "years" faster, and why I'm more bullish on AI improving the clinical development process, as enabled by my friends at QuantHealth for example.

What's beautiful about full integration of robotics is the ability to iterate experiments much faster. With this approach, the newly minted unicorn wants to build hubs in Boston, San Francisco, and London. It's one to watch closely, and it may push pharma to automate more of its internal discovery journey as well.

How do you see Lila's full-stack, robotics-heavy "science factory" model stacking up against Isomorphic Labs' model-first approach. Which one gets pharma to real impact sooner, and why?