Moonwalk Biosciences raises $70M Series B

Alpha Wave and YK Bioventures co-led the round, with Eli Lilly, Gaorong Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Future Ventures participating. Valuation was not disclosed. CEO Alex Aravanis said the money goes to three things: finishing IND-enabling studies for lead candidate MW101 and starting first-in-human work in late 2027, advancing further tissue-targeted siRNA programs, and expanding the AI-enabled discovery platform. The round follows an earlier $57 million Series A focused on target discovery and biological validation. Moonwalk targets fat tissue through non-incretin pathways. Non-human primate data showed durable target engagement after a single dose, supporting a hypothesis of quarterly to twice-yearly dosing. Dealroom reports the technology was licensed this year from China's Suzhou Siran Biotechnology. Risks remain: MW101 has not been tested in humans, and delivery into lipid-rich adipose tissue is a recognized translational hurdle. For AI founders, the company shows how a data-heavy discovery platform gets valued: investors are paying for a clinical candidate, with genetics and multi-omics models serving as the engine behind it. Lilly's presence signals big-pharma interest in obesity drugs beyond GLP-1s. Teams selling AI discovery tools should expect buyers and backers to ask about human data milestones, not model performance alone.