- Eric Nguyen left a Stanford PhD hunt-for-purpose to found Radical Numerics, whose team built “Evo” models that can generate DNA at scale — their open-source weights even enabled the first fully AI‑designed (harmless) virus.
- The startup popped out of stealth with a $50 million seed round led by Emergence Capital and backers including Patrick Collison, signaling heavy VC confidence in multimodal AI biology.
- The tech promises big wins (cancer detection, pathogen ID) but raises dual‑use worries; the company is partnering with national labs, advising defense officials, and will restrict future open releases.
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