Warp Sciences
Overview
Warp Sciences is a chemistry contract research organization based in South San Francisco, California. It combines chemists, AI and laboratory robotics to make research compounds for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, initially focusing on lead optimization for preclinical small-molecule programs.[1]
Contents7 sections
Key facts
October 22, 2026public launch and Series A
Kevin Weil announced that he had co-founded Warp Sciences with DJ Patil, Manohar Paluri and Sol Reisberg, and disclosed a $215 million Series A led by LightspeedLightspeed Venture PartnersLightspeed Venture Partners backs companies from seed through late-stage financing. Its website distinguishes Lightspeed Management Company (LSVP) from Lightspeed India Partners (LSIP): the two are separately operated investment advisers, with the U.S., European, and Israeli offices belonging to LSVP and the India and Southeast Asia offices belonging to LSIP.Open the full entry.[2]
The website lists institutional backers including Lightspeed, IVP, Premji, Mayfield, Lux, Menlo Ventures, 01 Advisors, Standard VP, Scribble Ventures, Lowercase Capital, Conviction, Angular Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Uncork Capital, Innovation Endeavors, Matter VP, Zero Shot Fund and Moxxie Ventures.[3]
Listed individual investors include Brian ArmstrongBrian ArmstrongBrian Armstrong is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the crypto asset trading platform Coinbase. He founded Coinbase in 2012, led the company to a direct listing on Nasdaq in 2021, and holds a majority of its voting power through a dual-class share structure; he also founded the scientific collaboration platform ResearchHub and co-founded the longevity research company NewLimit.Open the full entry, Dylan Field, Ion Stoica, Mike Krieger, Reid HoffmanReid HoffmanReid Hoffman is an American entrepreneur, venture investor, author and podcast host, co-founder of LinkedIn, Inflection AI and Manas AI, and a partner at Greylock. A former PayPal executive, he has built and backed businesses in professional networking, artificial intelligence and drug discovery. His co-authored books include The Startup of You and Blitzscaling.Open the full entry, Sarah Friar and Shyam SankarShyam SankarShyam Sankar is a technology executive and author, and chief technology officer and executive vice president of Palantir Technologies. He joined Palantir in 2006, helped establish its Forward Deployed Engineer model, and formerly chaired Ginkgo Bioworks. He launched First Breakfast, advocated defense industrial reform, cofounded Founders Films, and joined U.S. Army Reserve Detachment 201 in 2025.Open the full entry. The list does not specify their investment amounts.[3]
Founding team and responsibilities
The company lists Kevin Weil as CEO, Sol Reisberg as chief scientific officer, DJ Patil as COO and Manohar Paluri as CTO. Its team is based in South San Francisco.[4]
Lightspeed’s investment account describes Weil’s prior OpenAIOpenAIOpenAI is an artificial intelligence research and product organization founded in 2015 that develops the GPT model series, ChatGPT, Codex and a developer API, and conducts research on image, speech, video and intelligent agents. After its 2025 restructuring, the nonprofit OpenAI Foundation continues to control the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC. Its growth has involved large-scale fundraising and compute partnerships, and has also been accompanied by controversies over governance, copyright, privacy and AI safety.Open the full entry product and science leadership, Patil’s service as U.S. Chief Data Scientist, Reisberg’s medicinal-chemistry and Terremoto experience, and Paluri’s role in founding MetaMetaMeta (Meta Platforms, Inc.) is a publicly listed American technology company, renamed from Facebook in 2021, that operates social communication, digital advertising, virtual reality, smart glasses and artificial intelligence businesses.Open the full entry’s FAIR and leading Llama work.[5]
Services and pricing model
The service focuses on analog synthesis during lead optimization, from milligram to multi-gram scale, typically for molecules requiring five to fifteen synthetic steps. Warp says it charges per compound delivered at a price agreed with the customer, with no charge if it fails to produce the compound.[1]
The website describes an initial group of design partners whose chemists collaborate with Warp week by week. It positions the service around domestic collaboration and competitive pricing without providing complete metrics for delivery at scale.[1]
Laboratory approach and scientific vision
In a joint statement, the four founders say Warp does not develop its own drugs but builds research infrastructure for drug developers. Experienced chemists initially lead experiments as automation increases. Their long-term vision links scientists’ questions, AI-designed experiments, robotic execution and learning from results.[6]
The company plans to capture both successful and failed experiments and run dedicated data-generation campaigns alongside customer work to improve scientific models and laboratory processes. These are its stated research plans and objectives.[6]
Official website and public account
Official website: https://warp.xyz/ (opens in a new window). Public X account: https://x.com/warpsciences (opens in a new window).[7]
Sources
- Domestic Chemistry CRO for Biotech and Pharma (opens in a new window)
- Introducing Warp Sciences and its $215M Series A (opens in a new window)
- Warp Sciences | AI and robotics for faster drug discovery (opens in a new window)
- Meet the Team Behind Warp Sciences (opens in a new window)
- Why We’re Backing Warp (opens in a new window)
- What we believe (opens in a new window)
- Warp Sciences (@warpsciences) / X (opens in a new window)