Cyclica
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
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Sections to complete：02 · 05
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Cyclica was a Toronto-based biotechnology company founded in 2013 and co-founded by Naheed Kurji, who served as President and CEO. A pioneer in AI for drug discovery, it built a proteome-wide, AI-enabled computational platform anchored by two machine-learning engines: MatchMaker, a deep-learning engine that predicted the polypharmacology of small molecules, and POEM (Pareto Optimal Embedding Model), a similarity-based property prediction model. Its Ligand Design and Ligand Express platforms were sold to pharmaceutical partners and used to spin out drug-discovery programs, including Perturba Therapeutics for oncology in 2022.
02 / FAILURE REASONS
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03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Cyclica was founded in Toronto as a neo-biotech focused on proteome-wide, AI-enabled drug discovery.
- Series B
Cyclica raised CA$23 million (about $17 million) led by Drive Capital, with Chiesi Farmaceutici and GreenSky Capital participating, to advance its drug-discovery platforms.
- Spin-out launch
Cyclica launched Perturba Therapeutics, a University of Toronto spin-out focused on AI-enabled oncology drug design.
- Acquired by Recursion
In May 2023, Recursion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXRX) acquired Cyclica, folding its MatchMaker and POEM technologies into the RecursionOS platform. Co-founder Naheed Kurji became President of Recursion Canada.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN / AFTERMATH
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