Zurich’s Rivia Raises €13M Series A To Scale AI Clinical Trial Platform

The round was led by Earlybird, with participation from Defiant and existing investors Speedinvest, Amino Collective, and Nina Capital.

The funding will support team expansion, scaling of Rivia’s agentic product development, and the company’s international growth, with a particular focus on the US market.

Rivia was founded in 2022 by Scalfaro and Tiago Kieliger with the mission of bringing new drugs to market more efficiently, using a fraction of today’s capital.

The company highlights growing regulatory scrutiny: recent FDA guidance emphasizes proactive risk management, compliance, and supports innovation in trial design, execution, and technology.

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Erik Scalfaro, CEO and co-founder of Rivia, said, “Two years ago, we made a deliberate decision. We started with the scaffolding, building the foundational data engine before turning to agents. Today, that vertical sequence of data engine to agents gives us a structural advantage. We’ve seen BioTechs run global trials on Rivia and deliver measurable results, from preventing issues that would’ve cost millions to gaining earlier clarity on which patients benefit most. With every new trial our ontology library compounds making our system more powerful over time. Our goal is now to help clinical trials scale through workflows and AI rather than incremental human effort.”

At the same time, drug development economics are under pressure, with industry returns declining from 11% a decade ago to around 3% today, while successful therapies remain scarce.

Clinical trials have grown exponentially more complex. Data volumes have increased by over 400% in the past decade, yet operators still rely on fragmented spreadsheets and inflexible legacy systems. Thousands of hours are spent on repetitive, deterministic tasks such as validation, reconciliation, and monitoring.

Rivia has built the first reusable intelligence layer for clinical trials, integrating thousands of heterogeneous data files in real-time. Its engine applies trial-specific scientific logic via a proprietary library of reusable configurations and feeds harmonized data directly into operational workflows, supporting proactive decision-making.

The company is now rolling out a suite of embedded AI agents. Its first agent, Spark, transforms natural language into publication-quality clinical visualizations instantly. Next-generation agents are being deployed for proactive data quality monitoring and oversight enabling early deviation detection, intelligent prioritization and structured, auditable actions.

By replacing manual workflows with scalable agentic systems, Rivia aims to reduce clinical trial costs by up to 50%, accelerating drug development while improving compliance and operational efficiency.

“Clinical trials are among the most complex and costly workflows in healthcare yet much of the infrastructure remains fragmented and manual. Rivia has built a true intelligence layer for clinical operations unifying data and embedding agents directly into high-impact workflows. We believe this approach has the potential to fundamentally improve trial execution, reducing costs while increasing speed and data integrity. We’re excited to support Erik and the team as they scale this new agentic foundation for global drug development,” shared Christian Nagel, Partner and co-founder at Earlybird.