Fauna Bio
Fauna Bio is a private biotech using AI-driven comparative genomics from hibernating mammals to identify novel therapeutic targets for human diseases. It licenses its Convergence platform to pharmaceutical partners and develops a proprietary pipeline led by FAUN1083 for heart failure.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersBerkeley, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Fauna Bio does
Fauna Bio is a private biotechnology company founded in 2018 and headquartered in Emeryville, California, that uses AI-driven comparative genomics to identify novel therapeutic targets for human diseases by studying genetic data from hibernating mammals and other extreme animal species. The company's core technology is the Convergence™ AI platform, built on an exclusive biobank of genetic data from more than 450 mammal species (including 13-lined ground squirrels, spiny mice, tenrecs, and elephant seals), a Centaur knowledge graph with 1 million nodes and 38 million edges, a 1-billion-parameter graph neural network, and an integrated multi-omic dataset spanning 46 billion sequence reads across transcriptomes, proteomes, and epigenomes. In June 2025, the company launched Fauna Brain™, an AI platform with autonomous agents that replicate drug-discovery workflows in minutes.
The company monetizes primarily through B2B pharmaceutical collaborations structured as multi-year licensing deals with upfront payments, equity investments, milestone payments, and royalties. Its flagship agreement is a December 2023 collaboration with Eli Lilly worth up to $494 million for obesity drug discovery, which achieved a target-designation milestone in March 2026. Fauna Bio also maintains a Novo Nordisk collaboration in obesity and fibrosis, NASA-funded space health programs (STASH, ADAPT, RADIANCE), and academic partnerships through the Zoonomia Consortium and universities including UW-Oshkosh, UNLV, UF, and Colorado State. Its proprietary pipeline is led by FAUN1083 for heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF), which entered IND-enabling studies in Q4 2025 with first-in-human clinical entry targeted for 2026, supplemented by a retinal program (FAUN264G) and additional discovery-stage assets.
Fauna Bio firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Fauna Bio
- Legal name
- Fauna Bio
- Website
- https://faunabio.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Fauna Bio is a private biotech using AI-driven comparative genomics from hibernating mammals to identify novel therapeutic targets for human diseases. It licenses its Convergence platform to pharmaceutical partners and develops a proprietary pipeline led by FAUN1083 for heart failure.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Fauna Bio industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI-driven drug discovery
- NAICS
- Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714)
- SIC
- Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening) (HLAAAIAE)
Keywords
Where Fauna Bio is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Berkeley
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
Fauna Bio business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Pharmaceutical Licensing Deals: Multi-year licensing agreements with pharmaceutical companies including upfront payments, equity investments, milestone payments tied to development and regulatory achievements, and royalties based on commercial sales. Example: $494M agreement with Eli Lilly including upfront, equity, and milestone components.
- Collaborations and Research Partnerships: Strategic collaborations with pharma companies for specific disease areas (obesity, fibrosis) using the company's AI platform, with payments for target designation and other milestone achievements.
- Milestone Payments: Payments triggered by specific achievements in drug discovery collaborations such as target designation, IND-enabling studies, clinical entry, and regulatory milestones.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels6 records
Fauna Bio product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Fauna Bio is an AI-driven drug discovery company that uses comparative genomics from 450+ mammal species—including hibernating animals like 13-lined ground squirrels, spiny mice, tenrecs, and elephant seals—to identify novel therapeutic targets for human diseases. Its core platform, Convergence™, combines a proprietary biobank, a billion-parameter Centaur knowledge graph, and AI components (Orca, Centaur, Leo) to discover drugs that mimic natural disease resistance mechanisms, validated through multi-year pharma collaborations (e.g., $494M Eli Lilly deal) and a proprietary pipeline led by FAUN1083 for HFpEF.
Product overview
Fauna Bio is an AI-driven drug discovery company that leverages data from 100 million years of evolved disease resistance in mammals. The company's core offering consists of the Convergence™ AI platform and Fauna Brain™ AI system, which work together to identify novel therapeutic targets by studying how extreme animals like hibernating mammals resist and reverse disease. The platform analyzes genomic data from over 450 mammal species to discover drug targets, which are then validated using human genomics data. Fauna Bio's lead product is FAUN1083, a development candidate for Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFpEF), currently in IND-enabling studies with clinical entry planned for 2026. The company also maintains a partnered obesity program with Eli Lilly worth up to $494M and additional pipeline programs in retinal disease and other indications. The company collaborates with the Zoonomia Consortium and academic partners to access genomic data from diverse mammal species.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Convergence™ AI Platform
Quantifiable outcome
- FAUN1083 identified from just 60 samples from ground squirrels (vs 30,000+ needed in human studies)
- +3 more outcomes
Companies that use Fauna Bio
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Fauna Bio technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability5 records
Feature5 records
Fauna Bio partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Ten partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and supporting.
- Eli LillyflagshipMulti-year strategic collaboration for obesity drug discovery using Fauna's Convergence AI platform. Deal includes upfront payment, equity investment, and eligibility for up to $494 million in milestone payments plus royalties. Target designation milestone achieved in March 2026.
- Zoonomia ConsortiumcoreCollaboration producing whole-genome alignment of 240 mammals and protein-coding alignments for 428 mammals, featured in Science journal. Consortium includes 150+ researchers across 7 time zones.
- Novo NordiskcoreCollaboration on obesity and fibrosis-related diseases research using Fauna's comparative genomics approach and drug discovery platform.
- NASAcoreMultiple space-focused research programs including STASH, ADAPT, and RADIANCE studying hibernation mechanisms for astronaut health. Funded by NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) and Space Radiation Element.
- Canadian Space Agency (CSA)supportingSupporting Project RADIANCE for studying protective effects of hibernation against radiation, in collaboration with Italian Space Agency and NASA.
- Italian Space Agency (ASI)supportingSupporting Project RADIANCE for studying protective effects of hibernation against radiation exposure experienced during Mars missions.
- Colorado State UniversitycoreAcademic partnership for hibernation research, including ASCRIPTS study at NASA-funded neutron irradiation facility exploring radioprotection in hibernating ground squirrels.
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)supportingAcademic collaboration to examine heart samples from tenrecs to study cardiac regeneration mechanisms.
- University of Florida (UF)supportingAcademic collaboration to use spiny mice to understand mechanisms of regeneration in brain and skin tissues.
- University of Wisconsin-OshkoshsupportingDedicated research space to work with 13-lined ground squirrel colony and perform in-vivo experiments.
Scale indicators13 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Fauna Bio competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Insitro: AI-driven drug discovery company combining machine learning with biology to discover therapeutics. Operates a similar B2B model with pharma partnerships and an internal pipeline, competing directly with Fauna Bio in computational target identification and IND-stage programs.
- Recursion Pharmaceuticals: AI-native biotech using high-throughput biology and machine learning to discover drugs across multiple therapeutic areas. Like Fauna Bio, it combines proprietary data generation with AI modeling and pursues pharma partnerships alongside an internal pipeline.
- Exscientia: AI-driven precision medicine company focused on small-molecule drug discovery with multiple pharma collaborations. Comparable B2B partnership model and platform technology stack for accelerating preclinical candidate identification.
- Schrödinger: Computational chemistry and AI-based molecular simulation platform for drug discovery, serving pharma clients with software and collaborative programs. Direct competitor in the AI-driven drug design space with both platform and partnered pipeline economics.
- BenevolentAI: AI-drug-discovery company using knowledge graphs and machine learning to identify novel therapeutic targets across diseases. Closely comparable in using large biomedical knowledge graphs and target-discovery workflows with pharma partnerships.
- Isomorphic Labs: Alphabet-owned AI drug discovery company applying DeepMind's protein structure prediction and AI to pharmaceutical R&D. Competes for the same pharma partnership dollars with an AI-first platform approach to target identification and molecular design.
Emerging players
- Genesis Therapeutics: AI-native biotech using graph neural networks and physics-based methods to accelerate small-molecule drug discovery. Emerging peer with overlapping AI infrastructure and target-to-lead workflow, but focused on chemistry rather than animal-derived biology.
- Zymergen (Ginkgo): AI-driven bioengineering company focused on genomics and synthetic biology for industrial applications. Adjacent peer in the AI-meets-biology platform category, though less directly focused on human therapeutics.
- AbCellera: AI-enabled antibody discovery platform using high-throughput screening and computational methods to identify therapeutic antibodies. Adjacent platform biotech combining proprietary data and AI with pharma partnerships, with more focus on antibody modalities than Fauna Bio's small-molecule and target approach.
Broad incumbents
- Ginkgo Bioworks: Large-scale synthetic biology and biosecurity platform with cell engineering and organism design capabilities. Broad incumbent with an AI-driven biology platform that touches drug discovery, though it is more diversified into industrial biotech than Fauna Bio's pure therapeutic focus.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Fauna Bio social profiles
Digital presenceFauna Bio financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Fauna Bio leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
Fauna Bio funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds4 records
Investors13 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Fauna Bio M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Fauna Bio
What does Fauna Bio do?
Fauna Bio is an AI-driven drug discovery company that uses comparative genomics from 450+ mammal species—including hibernating animals like 13-lined ground squirrels, spiny mice, tenrecs, and elephant seals—to identify novel therapeutic targets for human diseases. Its core platform, Convergence™, combines a proprietary biobank, a billion-parameter Centaur knowledge graph, and AI components (Orca, Centaur, Leo) to discover drugs that mimic natural disease resistance mechanisms, validated through multi-year pharma collaborations (e.g., $494M Eli Lilly deal) and a proprietary pipeline led by FAUN1083 for HFpEF.
Is Fauna Bio a public or private company?
Fauna Bio is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Fauna Bio founded?
Fauna Bio was founded in 2018. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Fauna Bio based?
Fauna Bio is headquartered in Berkeley, United States, in the North America region.
How does Fauna Bio make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Pharmaceutical Licensing Deals are the primary driver. The others are collaborations and Research Partnerships and milestone Payments.
Who are Fauna Bio's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Insitro, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Exscientia, Schrödinger, BenevolentAI and Isomorphic Labs. Emerging players are Genesis Therapeutics, Zymergen (Ginkgo) and AbCellera. Ginkgo Bioworks is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does Fauna Bio have an API?
No public API is recorded for Fauna Bio.
What industry is Fauna Bio in?
Fauna Bio's product category is AI-driven drug discovery. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAAAIAE, AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening). Its NAICS code is 541714 and its SIC code is 8731.