Sovereign AI invests in Basecamp Research to help design the next generation of medicines

September 2026

We've invested in Basecamp Research as part of its $140m round.

Designing new treatments is one of the slowest and most expensive processes in science. Cell and gene therapies, some of the most promising tools available for treating diseases like cancer and autoimmune conditions, can often take years and hundreds of millions of pounds to develop, with limited guarantee of success.

Basecamp Research has built the world's largest database of genetic information, drawn from over a million previously undiscovered species. By training AI on this data, the company is developing models that can design new medicines faster than traditional methods allow, including cell and gene therapies, and therapeutic enzymes and peptides.

If successful, the implications are significant. Basecamp Research's technology could help researchers design and test advanced therapies more efficiently, supporting progress on some of medicine's hardest problems, including:

- Treatments for cancer and autoimmune disease.
- Faster, more efficient development of cell and gene therapies.
- New therapeutic enzymes and peptides.
- Advances that build on AI already helping clinicians diagnose conditions earlier and improve care across the NHS.

Health is one of the clearest examples of where AI can make a real difference to people's lives, and the UK's life sciences sector is already one of the country's greatest strengths. Basecamp Research is the sixth company to receive equity investment from Sovereign AI, and a strong example of the kind of frontier science Britain can lead the world in.

Josephine Kant, Head of Ventures at Sovereign AI, said:

"Glen and Oliver met as undergraduates at Oxford, and rather than taking the obvious path, they dragged a portable lab to the Arctic to do something no one had done before: sequence DNA completely off-grid. That instinct, to go where no one else has been and come back with something new, runs through everything they've built since.

"The best founders make you believe the impossible is only a matter of time, and Glen and Oliver are doing exactly that."

We're delighted to partner with Glen, Oliver and the entire Basecamp Research team as they take on one of the toughest challenges in life sciences.