Gibran Secures USD 2.6M to Build Next-Gen AI for Scientific Discovery

Gibran, a newly launched AI research startup, has raised USD 2.6 million in seed funding from Together Fund to develop a new class of adaptive, scale-free AI systems modeled on principles from nature and evolutionary biology.

The funding is a noteworthy development for India's deeptech ecosystem as Gibran sets out to build AI models that can address challenging real-world challenges in science, drug discovery, education, and the creative arts.

Founded by Govind Balakrishnan, Srikant Chakravarti, Suzanne Sadedin, and Edgar Duéñez-Guzmán, their team includes experts in AI, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and generative systems. Balakrishnan and Chakravarti are co-founders of a content start-up Curio, that operated for eight years before shutting down in early 2025.

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Gibran is developing "scale-free" AI systems - models that evolve, change and adapt like organisms rather than only building models using large amounts of labeled datasets, which is dependent on the use of local data with models being trained on common ground. This ambition may unlock applications in domains where conventional AI models are hampered due to lack of data. The company's first applications will purposefully direct its effort toward drug discovery, with the aim of using AI to develop new hypotheses and compounds with useful real-world impacts.

The funding will support platform development, team expansion, and the delivery of early R&D results by the end of 2025. Gibran’s entry signals a bold shift in India’s AI landscape, blending scientific research and product innovation to redefine how machines learn and co-create with humans.