This Startup Is Billionaire Reid Hoffman's Next Big Bet

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman became a billionaire erstwhile Microsoft bought LinkedIn successful 2016 for $26.2 cardinal successful cash, and he has too made his luck connected high-return investments successful overmuch than 80 tech startups, including Airbnb, Groupon, and Flickr. He famously made $111 cardinal from his first $37,500 finance successful Facebook.

Now Hoffman is turning his attraction to AI successful healthcare pinch a caller startup he introduced past week pinch co-founder Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee: Manas AI. And this clip Hoffman has deeper hopes than conscionable a precocious return connected finance — he wants to thief cure cancer.

Manas is bringing AI to immoderate of nan world's apical supplier betterment scientists to deepen their expertise and velocity up nan title astatine which caller narcotics are discovered. The startup intends to merge researchers pinch precocious AI systems to overmuch quickly fig retired really perchance life-saving narcotics could interact pinch nan value body.

Related: LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman: To Scale, Do Things That Don't Scale

Manas is initially turning its attraction to fierce cancers for illustration bosom cancer, prostate cancer, and lymphoma. Its semipermanent imagination is to fundamentally alteration really nan manufacture discovers and develops caller medicines.

"Most group personification had friends, family members, etc., who've died from crab aliases had superior crab problems," Hoffman told CNBC connected Monday. "If we tin make a immense value connected this, and this is nan benignant of constituent that AI tin make a immense value in, it's nan benignant of logic why AI tin beryllium awesome for humanity."

Reid Hoffman The Midway SF connected December 05, 2023, successful San Francisco, California. Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for WIRED

The startup has raised $24.6 cardinal successful seed backing truthful far, pinch Hoffman starring nan backing accusation pinch task superior diligent General Catalyst. It will tally its AI systems successful accusation centers owned by Microsoft.

Related: Reid Hoffman: To Successfully Grow A Business, You Must 'Expect Chaos'

Mukherjee is simply a Columbia University professor and writer of "The Emperor of All Maladies," a book astir cancer. In 2016, he helped recovered Vor BioPharma, a compartment engineering company, and successful 2021 he founded Myeloid Therapeutics, a crab therapy startup.

Manas presently has 4 labour including Mukherjee and Hoffman, pinch Hoffman saying he serves arsenic nan company's "AI guy" and Mukherjee arsenic nan "bio guy." Manas' extremity is to merge nan 2 fields.

"It isn't conscionable nan champion of taxable and it isn't conscionable nan champion of AI, because either of those 2 [is] insufficient," Hoffman told CNBC. "You petition to put those 2 together."

The AI healthcare assemblage saw important investments successful 2024. According to PitchBook, investors poured $10.5 cardinal into 511 healthcare AI deals successful 2024. Cancer screening AI startup Freenome raised nan astir money retired of nan group pinch a $254 cardinal Series F successful February 2024.