Verily steps out from under Alphabet’s shadow after raising $300M to advance precision health – News

Verily Life Sciences is finally growing up, stepping out from under the enormous shadow of its former parent company Alphabet Inc. after raising $300 million in funding today.

The round was led by Series X Capital, a venture fund that was set up by Alphabet specifically to help scale up its most promising experimental technology bets. Verily first emerged as one of Alphabet’s “moonshot” projects within Google X research labs before spinning out as a subsidiary. UCHealth and the University of Colorado Anschutz also participated in the round.

Alongside the funding, the company announced a corporate restructuring that establishes it as an independent entity in the emerging business of artificial intelligence-driven precision health. Going forward, it’ll be known officially as Verily Health Inc.

Perhaps the most significant change is that Alphabet is relinquishing its controlling stake in Verily. Though it remains a “significant minority investor,” the decoupling will give Verily the much-needed neutrality that’s required for it to integrate its technology deeply within the highly sensitive and strictly regulated healthcare industry. Because it’s no longer a subsidiary of Google’s parent company, it could eliminate some of the hesitation that prospective partners may have about sharing data or collaborating with it.

Collaborations will be critical for Verily to bring its precision healthcare solutions to more patients. Already, it has been working with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to leverage data from Galaxy Watch users to advance biomarker development in clinical research. In addition, it has partnered with Salesforce Inc. to integrate Verily Pre with that company’s Agentforce Health platform, bridging precision medical data with enterprise customer relationship management.

Series X Capital is led by former Facebook and YouTube executive Gideon Yu and has been tasked by Alphabet to act as the “last mile of incubation” for its most promising moonshot projects. Its goal is to help Verily transition into a financially disciplined and commercially viable enterprise that’s able to stand on its own two feet.

Verily is led by its Chairman and Chief Executive Stephen Gillett, who said the restructuring is a vital step for the company, enabling it to combine artificial intelligence with clinical and scientific rigor and advance personalized healthcare at scale. The company’s goal is to make healthcare data more actionable and transition to a world where medicine is predictive, personalized and proactive.

Its two core offerings include the Verily Pre platform, which is designed to help life sciences companies and researchers organize fragmented healthcare records, genomic datasets and information from wearables so it can be analyzed by AI systems. The goal is to discover new biomarkers and accelerate clinical trials.

In addition, Verily develops technology-based treatments such as Lightpath, which is an AI-native care management platform for people with chronic diseases such as diabetes. Another example is Verily Me, which is a health companion application that anyone can download for healthcare advice and recommendations.

Alphabet President and Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat said Verily is using advanced technology to address multiple longstanding healthcare challenges. “Bringing in new investors, alongside Alphabet’s ongoing involvement, enables Verily to further scale its business to help improve patient outcomes and lower the cost of healthcare delivery,” she said.

Image: Verily