Paris-based ArcaScience Raises €6 Million Funding In Pre-Seed Round

The startup uses artificial intelligence to analyse medication risks and benefits, helping pharmaceutical companies develop safer treatments.

The investment round was led by The Moon Venture, with participation from Pléiade Venture, Plug&Play Ventures, Bpifrance, and AKKA Technologies.

“It takes over 10 years to bring a drug to market. There is a 90% fail rate and the average cost per drug that makes it to the market is $2.3 billion! Benefit-risk prediction is no longer a nice-to-have, but a prerequisite for building better drugs. This round will help us scale our product, and bring real benefit-risk clarity to both the pharma industry and patients,” said Romain Clement, Founder and CEO at ArcaScience.

Founded in 2018, ArcaScience emerged from a deeply personal journey. After being diagnosed with a form of brain cancer, founder Romain Clement experienced the limitations of the healthcare system in creating personalized treatments firsthand. Following his remission he dedicated himself to tackling the critical gaps in how pharmaceutical companies assess the benefits and risks of new drugs.

To address this bottleneck, ArcaScience developed an AI-powered platform that revolutionizes benefit-risk assessments for drug developers, regulators, clinicians, and patients. The proprietary technology integrates 24 highly specialized AI models with a unified database of over 100 billion health data points, enabling smarter and faster evaluations.

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The company, which now has a core team of eight collaborators, has established partnerships with leading institutions like the Paris Brain Institute (ICM) and Inserm.In 2023, ArcaScience boosted its business expertise by bringing on two key partners: Julien Dufour (formerly Head of Sales at Happytal and La Poste Santé) and Jean-François Arbona (an experienced serial entrepreneur).

“We’re thrilled to be backed by The Moon Venture whose team of Founders turned investors bring unparalleled access to global entrepreneurs and HealthTech networks, and Pléiade Venture, who are known for helping startups scale to profitability and long-term success,” added Clement.

This €6 million seed round marks ArcaScience's first institutional funding, building upon an earlier €1.3 million pre-seed investment from Plug & Play Ventures and angel investors.

The new capital will fuel the company's expansion into the US and UK markets, where it aims to establish a new standard in drug evaluation. Specifically, the funds will launch ArcaScience's first patient-facing solution initially targeting pediatric brain cancer and dermatological diseases and support the recruitment of a Chief Medical Officer to accelerate the translation of its AI technology into measurable clinical impact.

ArcaScience is perfectly placed to succeed in a massive, €11.1 billion global market that focuses on evaluating drug safety. The industry is changing fast, and most major pharmaceutical companies are expected to use AI for this crucial work within the next few years. ArcaScience isn't just waiting for the future it's already building it. The company is already working with top pharmaceutical brands and leading research centers, proving that its technology is needed now.

“ArcaScience is solving a critical need in the pharmaceutical industry with a groundbreaking technological approach,” said the team at The Moon Venture. “We’ve seen remarkable market traction to date, and we believe they are ideally positioned to have a major impact in the pharma and patient care industries. This investment aligns with our strategy of supporting companies that are transforming entire industries through AI.”

ArcaScience has already established significant commercial traction, securing ten major pharmaceutical clients including industry leaders Sanofi, AstraZeneca, GSK, Takeda and ICON, alongside research powerhouses like the Paris Brain Institute.

The company's platform has demonstrated real-world impact, being used to support over 70,000 patients managing chronic skin diseases, and is increasingly adopted by clinical and pharmacovigilance teams to de-risk clinical trials and optimise drug development.

Its expertise has been recognized at the highest levels, notably when the French government selected ArcaScience to structure and deliver the entire corpus of scientific knowledge on COVID-19 during the pandemic.

ArcaScience is strengthening its role as a key innovator by joining a major new European consortium. Led by Sanofi and the charity Imagine for Margo the group includes leading institutions like Institut Gustave Roussy and the Medical University of Vienna, as well as pharmaceutical companies Roche and Merck. Together, they are using AI to fight pediatric brain cancer.