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Opentrons Raises $40 Million to Scale AI Lab Automation
Opentrons announced a $40 million Series E led by healthcare investor Avego, with additional investment from BroadOak Capital Partners. The company plans to expand its lab robotics, software and data infrastructure for AI-directed experimen
AI.info Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
Opentrons says AI can design experiments faster than physical laboratories can run them. On October 29, the laboratory-automation company announced a $40 million Series E to expand the robots, software and data systems it says can narrow that gap. Healthcare investor Avego led the round, with additional investment from BroadOak Capital Partners.
The financing puts a commercial bet behind a specific claim: that automated lab work can turn AI-generated experimental plans into repeatable results and data. Opentrons says its Flex platform combines robots and AI systems to design, run and improve experiments in a continuous loop. The company did not disclose a valuation or other financing terms in its announcement.
Opentrons points to the lab’s slower pace
The company frames the bottleneck as a mismatch between digital research and physical work. Scientists can use frontier models to propose hypotheses and design experiments, it says, while laboratories still need to carry out those tests. Opentrons argues that its automated systems can connect those steps by handling experiments and producing structured, reproducible data.
“Giving that time back to discovery is the biggest opportunity in science,” said James Atwood, PhD, Opentrons’ CEO, referring to scientists’ manual work. He said the company built its systems so AI can run experiments directly. The announcement presents that capability as a route to autonomous science, but provides no independent performance comparison or customer results demonstrating how much time the systems save.
$40 million for robotics, software and data
Opentrons plans to spend the new capital on AI-driven experimental execution, expanded automation capabilities, and entry into new markets and geographies. The company also says the funding will support faster protocol development through its software and AI, add capabilities across its robots and instruments, and deepen integration with other laboratory-automation tools. Those are plans for the proceeds, not delivered features or results.
Avego managing partner James Flexner described the same gap from the investor’s perspective: “Every AI-driven discovery still has to be tested in a real lab.” He said drug developers and AI companies are moving toward automated workflows that produce usable data. Avego’s investment thesis, as stated in the release, rests on those groups converging around platforms such as Opentrons.
An installed base gives Opentrons a starting point
Opentrons says it has deployed more than 11,000 robots to laboratories in over 80 countries. Its announcement also says its robots are used at 90 percent of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. Those figures are company-reported measures of reach; the release does not break them down by robot model, use case or level of customer deployment.
The company lists SoftBank Vision Fund and Khosla Ventures among its existing investors, alongside the new round’s lead investor, Avego, and BroadOak. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in New York City, Opentrons sells an open, API-driven platform for laboratory automation. The Series E now gives it capital to extend that platform, while the stated test remains whether AI-designed experiments can be run reliably on lab benches at greater scale.