Warp Sciences, a new company led by former OpenAI executive Kevin Weil, launched on 22 October 2026 with a Series A round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed confirmed it had led the round in a post on its website the same day.
Lightspeed did not give the size of the round. Weil announced on X that the company had raised $215m at an $865m valuation, TechCrunch reported. The Next Web, citing a Bloomberg report, gave the same figures and described the valuation as including the new money.
TechCrunch and The Next Web did not say whether the round was a seed or a Series A. Lightspeed's post called it a Series A.
“The science of the future will definitely involve robotic labs and reinforcement learning loops that go through the real world.”Kevin Weil, CEO, Warp Sciences
What Warp does
Warp is building robotic chemistry labs in the US that use AI to carry out drug-discovery chemistry for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Lightspeed said Warp's first service is lead optimisation, the stage at which chemists make and test many variations of a promising molecule to improve it and reduce side effects.
Drugmakers have largely sent this labour-intensive work to contractors in China, such as WuXi AppTec, TechCrunch and The Next Web reported. Weil wants to bring it back to the US to reduce the geopolitical risk in drug-development supply chains, according to TechCrunch. The Next Web stressed that Warp does not present itself as a drug discovery company that develops its own medicines.
To train its robots, Warp's human chemists wear cameras and sensor gloves while they carry out lab tasks, and the recorded data is used to teach the machines to repeat the work, TechCrunch reported. The company wants its robots to run around the clock to speed up drug discovery. Weil told Bloomberg, as quoted by The Next Web, that "the models need to see that data".
Lightspeed's post quoted a remark Weil made before he left OpenAI: that the science of the future would involve robotic labs and reinforcement learning loops that run through the real world.
The founding team
Weil is chief executive. According to Lightspeed, he studied physics and mathematics at Harvard and physics at Stanford, led product at Twitter and Instagram, was president of product and business at Planet, and was OpenAI's chief product officer before starting and leading OpenAI for Science. The Next Web said he left OpenAI in April.
His co-founders are DJ Patil, the first US chief data scientist, who was previously chief scientist at LinkedIn and worked at Devoted Health; Sol Reisberg, a medicinal chemist with about 20 years' experience who has worked at Gilead and Schrödinger and co-founded Terremoto Biosciences; and Mano Paluri, who helped found Meta's FAIR research lab and was most recently a vice president at Meta Superintelligence Labs. Lightspeed named Patil as chief operating officer and Reisberg as chief scientific officer, and said Paluri leads Warp's model and robotics work.
Warp has about 20 employees, according to The Next Web and Drug Development & Delivery. None of the sources said where the company is headquartered.
Who invested
Reports differed on the list of backers. TechCrunch said IVP, Mayfield, Lux Capital, Premji Invest and Menlo Ventures joined Lightspeed. The Next Web and Drug Development & Delivery named IVP, Premji Invest and Lux Capital, but not Mayfield or Menlo Ventures.
Angel investors include OpenAI finance chief Sarah Friar, Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, The Next Web reported. Drug Development & Delivery also named Fidji Simo and Palantir chief technology officer Shyam Sankar.
None of the sources said how Warp will spend the money or when its first lab will open.
Company website: warp.xyz