LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman became a billionaire when Microsoft bought LinkedIn in 2016 for $26.2 billion in cash, and he has also made his fortune on high-return investments in more than 80 tech startups, including Airbnb, Groupon, and Flickr. He famously made $111 million from his initial $37,500 investment in Facebook.
Now Hoffman is turning his attention to AI in healthcare with a new startup he introduced last week with co-founder Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee: Manas AI. And this time Hoffman has deeper hopes than just a high return on investment — he wants to help cure cancer.
Manas is bringing AI to some of the world’s top drug development scientists to deepen their expertise and speed up the rate at which new drugs are discovered. The startup aims to unite researchers with advanced AI systems to more quickly figure out how potentially life-saving drugs could interact with the human body.
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Manas is initially turning its attention to aggressive cancers like breast cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. Its long-term vision is to fundamentally change how the industry discovers and develops new medicines.
“Most people have had friends, family members, etc., who’ve died from cancer or had serious cancer problems,” Hoffman told CNBC on Monday. “If we can make a huge difference on this, and this is the kind of thing that AI can make a huge difference in, it’s the kind of reason why AI can be great for humanity.”
Reid Hoffman The Midway SF on December 05, 2023, in San Francisco, California. Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED
The startup has raised $24.6 million in seed funding so far, with Hoffman leading the funding round with venture capital firm General Catalyst. It will operate its AI systems in data centers owned by Microsoft.
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Mukherjee is a Columbia University professor and author of “The Emperor of All Maladies,” a book about cancer. In 2016, he helped found Vor BioPharma, a cell engineering company, and in 2021 he founded Myeloid Therapeutics, a cancer therapy startup.
Manas currently has four employees including Mukherjee and Hoffman, with Hoffman saying he serves as the company’s “AI guy” and Mukherjee as the “bio guy.” Manas’ goal is to unite the two fields.
“It isn’t just the best of science and it isn’t just the best of AI, because either of those two [is] insufficient,” Hoffman told CNBC. “You need to put those two together.”
The AI healthcare sector saw substantial investments in 2024. According to PitchBook, investors poured $10.5 billion into 511 healthcare AI deals in 2024. Cancer screening AI startup Freenome raised the most money out of the group with a $254 million Series F in February 2024.
