Getting a genetic drug to the right spot in the body remains one of the thorniest problems in modern medicine, and it is the reason many promising therapies never leave the laboratory. Undecimal Bio, a biotechnology company spun out of Eleven Therapeutics, has raised $18 million in Seed financing to tackle that exact challenge with an artificial intelligence platform designed to guide RNA-based medicines to specific cells.
The round was co-led by 4BIO Capital and IQ Capital, with additional backing from Verve Ventures, Harel Tech, Entrée Capital, Kerna Ventures and Saras Capital. Undecimal will use the capital to advance its delivery platform, pursue initial programs in renovascular disease, and grow its team at laboratories based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.
Why Delivery, Not Silencing, Is the Bottleneck
RNA interference, or RNAi, is a naturally occurring biological mechanism that can be harnessed to switch off genes responsible for disease. Small interfering RNA, or siRNA, molecules are engineered to bind to and neutralize the genetic messages that drive harmful proteins. The approach has already reshaped treatment for several liver conditions, where the organ's natural filtering function makes it relatively accessible to these therapies.
Outside the liver, the picture changes considerably. A siRNA molecule can be precisely designed to silence the correct gene, yet it accomplishes nothing if it cannot physically reach the cells where that gene operates. Cell membranes, circulation patterns and tissue-specific barriers all stand between an injected medicine and its intended target. This delivery gap has long limited RNAi's reach, confining its clinical success mostly to the liver while other organs remain largely out of bounds.
An AI-Driven Search for Delivery Molecules
Undecimal's platform, called DELiveri, approaches this problem through scale and data rather than trial and error on a handful of candidates. Instead of testing a narrow set of known delivery molecules, the system screens large combinatorial libraries of chemical structures, using living cells as a detection mechanism that measures how effectively RNA is delivered at single-molecule resolution.
The resulting data is then analyzed by agentic AI systems that look for patterns connecting a molecule's structure to its delivery performance. The aim is to turn what has traditionally been a slow, largely empirical search into a more systematic and faster process for identifying which molecular designs successfully ferry siRNA into specific cell types.
From Eleven Therapeutics to a Focused Spin-Out
Undecimal's formation builds on earlier work at Eleven Therapeutics, which raised $22 million in Seed funding in 2022, including support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to develop siRNA medicines using AI and combinatorial chemistry, including molecules designed for longer-lasting effects. Undecimal narrows that broader effort into a dedicated focus on the delivery problem itself.
The company is led by co-founders Dr. Yaniv Erlich and Shaul Ilan, with a board that includes representatives from 4BIO Capital, IQ Capital and Harel Technologies, while Verve Ventures sits as a board observer. "The hard problem in RNAi was never the silencing, it was getting the molecule to the right cell," Erlich said, adding that DELiveri's ability to screen large chemical spaces and generate structured data for AI analysis is meant to surface promising candidates for a next generation of siRNA therapeutics.
What Comes Next
Undecimal's early programs will concentrate on renovascular diseases, a category involving blood vessels connected to kidney function, an area where effective RNA delivery outside the liver could carry real clinical weight. Whether DELiveri's data-driven approach can reliably translate laboratory screening into medicines that work safely in patients remains to be demonstrated through further research and, eventually, clinical trials. For now, the investment signals continued confidence that solving RNA delivery, rather than RNA design alone, may determine how far this class of medicine can ultimately extend.