AI-based Life science platform Elucidata announced that has raised $16 million in its series A funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures, with participation from F-Prime Capital, IvyCap Ventures, and Hyperplane Venture Capital.

The funds raised will be used by Elucidata’s data-centric Machine Learning Operations (ML-Ops) platform, Polly to deepen product capabilities in translational drug research and allied markets, scale go-to-market initiatives and accelerate global expansion of operations, the firm said in a prepared statement.

Founded in 2015 by University of Chicago and MIT graduate Abhishek Jha, IIT Delhi alumnus Swetabh Pathak, and Richard Kibbey, Associate Professor at Yale School of Medicine, Elucidata’s Polly operates on unique BioNLP technology that cleans and links 26 and more research and development (R&D) data types and caters to companies in various stages of their drug discovery process.

“Organizations often underestimate the importance of data quality, and as a result, a lot of AI/ML initiatives are compromised. We’re on a mission to derisk such initiatives in life sciences R&D by empowering them with high-quality biomedical data at every stage of the R&D process,” said Abhishek Jha, CEO, and Cofounder of Elucidata.

Elucidata sees the era of AI as one in which life sciences companies leverage the benefits of AI. This would require a complete reimagination of the current “model-centric” AI narrative, that has largely been driven by internet companies, but does not apply to niche industries like life sciences R&D.

“Elucidata’s technology platform seeks to democratize access to curated biomedical data at scale, allowing biopharmaceutical companies to accelerate the discovery and development of novel therapies. We are proud to partner with Abhishek, Swetabh and the team on their vision to accelerate data-centric drug discovery and development.” said Ashish Venkataramani, Partner, Eight Roads Ventures