Paris-based Rivercell emerged from stealth with a USD 25 million seed financing round led by HV, with participation from HCVC, Alven, and Bpifrance Digital Venture, to develop AI models capable of predicting how human cells respond to drugs and genetic modifications.
Rivercell is building a proprietary experimental data platform to generate large-scale, time-resolved, multimodal single-cell datasets, which will be used to train its AI Virtual Cell (AIVC) model. The company aims to address a major limitation of existing biological AI models: the lack of experimental data showing how cells respond to specific interventions over time. Its technology is intended to support drug discovery across oncology, immunology, rare diseases, and cardiometabolic conditions.
The funding will support expansion of Rivercell's automated wet lab in Paris, scaling of its data generation infrastructure, and development of the AIVC model. The company was founded by CEO Yann Fleureau, who previously co-founded AI diagnostics company Cardiologs, acquired by Philips in 2021, and Chief Science Officer Eric Durand, formerly Director of Oncology Data Science at Novartis and Chief Data Science Officer at Owkin. Durand also co-founded biology foundation-model developer Bioptimus.