SK Networks孵化的Phoenix Lab拟完成800万美元种子轮融资

Phoenix Lab, a startup founded by SK Networks (001740.KS) in partnership with Stanford University-affiliated artificial intelligence (AI) and biopharma experts, is conducting an $8 million (about 11.8 billion won) seed investment round under its trade name "Chiron" and plans to close it in the second half of the year.
Phoenix Lab said on the 23rd that Menlo Ventures, a leading Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has invested in companies such as Anthropic and Uber, is participating in the investment round as the lead investor.
Phoenix Lab launched "Chiron," Korea's first retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)-based generative AI drug development solution, in 2024. It is the first AI-native operating system that represents an entire drug program as a single connected system. Chiron users conduct an average of more than 40 research queries per week.
Phoenix Lab has appointed advisers including Robert Langer, an Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who has founded more than 40 biotech companies including Moderna, and Freda Lewis-Hall, former Chief Medical Officer of Pfizer. Josh Meyer, CEO of Chai Discovery; Laxman Narasimhan, former CEO of Starbucks; and John Giannandrea, former Senior Vice President (SVP) of Machine Learning and AI at Apple, also participated in the investment.
Phoenix Lab, based in Los Altos, California, at the heart of Silicon Valley, was established in 2024 through SK Networks' early-stage company incubation program. Chey Sung-hwan, President and Head of Business at SK Networks, personally recruited Bae Min-seok, CEO of Phoenix Lab, as well as Stanford University researchers and undergraduate and master's degree talent locally in the United States to build the organization. President Chey took on a management advisory role, supporting Chiron's launch and business expansion.
This investment will be used to advance Chiron's Life Sciences Knowledge Graph (LKG) and expand its clinical, regulatory, and strategy workflow functions. It will also be invested in the growth of the engineering, product, and life sciences teams. The LKG is Chiron's core platform, which connects diverse knowledge across biomedical, patent, and commercial fields into a single structured intelligence layer to support drug developers' reasoning. It can be used for cross-reviewing clinical and regulatory precedents, finding contradictions between competitors' public data and patent filings, and stress-testing hypotheses on mechanisms of action.
"Drug development attracts great attention, but ultimately the key is how quickly that drug can reach patients," Professor Langer said. "Technology like Chiron will play an important role in shortening drug development and launch timelines."
Venky Ganesan, a partner at Menlo Ventures, added, "Bae Min-seok and the team did not create just another search tool for the life sciences field, but redefined what a drug program actually is."
Phoenix Lab assessed that this new investment recognizes it as a platform demonstrating the global expansion potential of K-Bio.
"As the first investor, I have watched most closely as Chiron turns ambitious ideas into tangible results, and I feel great pride in what it has achieved," said Shin Sang-eun, a Head at SK Networks. "I find it meaningful that Chiron will continue its journey toward the next leap together with new partners."