{"id":830023,"date":"2025-02-26T13:13:38","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/26\/apheris-rethinks-the-ai-data-bottleneck-in-life-science-with-federated-computing\/"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:13:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:13:38","slug":"apheris-rethinks-the-ai-data-bottleneck-in-life-science-with-federated-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/26\/apheris-rethinks-the-ai-data-bottleneck-in-life-science-with-federated-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"Apheris rethinks the AI data bottleneck in life science with federated computing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

AI is fundamentally dependent on data, but the vast majority of health data goes unused<\/a> for understandable reasons \u2014 chiefly patient privacy, regulation, and IP protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the core underlying problem\u201d of building AI solutions for life sciences and related areas like pharmaceutics, said German entrepreneur Robin R\u00f6hm. And not only that: Collaboration when it comes to sensitive data can be a challenge. Apheris<\/a>, R\u00f6hm\u2019s startup, aims to address this through federated computing: making data securely accessible for AI model training without moving it by taking a decentralized approach.<\/p>\n

Its customers include Roche and several hospitals, he said.<\/p>\n

The core philosophy of federated computing is that \u201ccomputations are executed locally where data resides, and only the outputs (e.g., model parameters) are aggregated centrally,\u201d says Marcin Hejka, a co-founder and managing partner at OTB Ventures<\/a>. Hejka has now co-led an $8.25 million Series A into Apheris alongside fellow deep tech investor eCAPITAL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hejka believes Apheris could become a critical component in the federated data networks that are starting to emerge. \u201cWe see a maturing ecosystem of third-party software tools (open source federation engines, data quality tools, and security products),\u201d he told TechCrunch. \u201cApheris also enables seamless integration with complementary privacy-enhancing technologies (homomorphic encryption, differential privacy, synthetic data).\u201d<\/p>\n

Apheris\u2019 new funding comes in the wake of a pivot. Originally, R\u00f6hm and his co-founder Michael H\u00f6h started the company in 2019 with the goal of building a federated learning framework that competed with open source approaches, based on their experiences at their previous startup, Janus Genomics. But after raising a large seed round in 2022<\/a>, the duo made a major pivot in 2023 to focus on the data owner side and double down on pharma and life sciences.<\/p>\n

According to R\u00f6hm, this paid off. The startup found product-market fit with the new product it launched in the last quarter of 2023, and multiplied its revenue by four since then. Also backed by existing investors including Octopus Ventures and Heal Capital, its new round brings its total funding to $20.8 million, which will help the company hire senior talent with life science backgrounds, also on the commercial side.<\/p>\n

The Apheris Compute Gateway, the software agent that serves as a gateway between local data and AI models, is already being used by the AI Structural Biology (AISB) Consortium<\/a>, a joint initiative that sees members such as \u200b\u200bAbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi collaborate on AI-driven drug discovery.<\/p>\n

Protein complex prediction will be one topic Apheris will further focus on with this new funding. While use-case agnostic, it understands that it can add value when there is very limited public data available, yet much more valuable and diverse data that won\u2019t be unlocked unless life sciences companies feel safe doing so. <\/p>\n

\u201cWithout addressing the data owners\u2019 concerns in providing data to AI, we don\u2019t think that the impact of AI can really be unlocked, and that\u2019s ultimately the core mission of what we\u2019re building,\u201d R\u00f6hm said.<\/p>\n

TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter!\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Anna Heim is a writer and editorial consultant.<\/p>\n

As a freelance reporter at TechCrunch since 2021, she has covered a large range of startup-related topics including AI, fintech & insurtech, SaaS & pricing, and global venture capital trends.<\/p>\n

As of 2025, her reporting for TechCrunch mostly focuses on Europe, and particularly on the rise of defense, security and resilience tech in the region.
\nShe also writes TechCrunch\u2019s Startups Weekly newsletter, rounding up startup news every Friday.<\/p>\n

Anna has moderated panels and conducted onstage interviews at industry events of all sizes, including major tech conferences such as TechCrunch Disrupt, 4YFN, South Summit, TNW Conference, VivaTech, and many more.<\/p>\n

A former LATAM & Media Editor at The Next Web, startup founder and Sciences Po Paris alum, she\u2019s fluent in multiple languages, including French, English, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\tView Bio <\/svg><\/a>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Anna Heim
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI is fundamentally dependent on data, but the vast majority of health data goes unused for understandable reasons \u2014 chiefly patient privacy, regulation, and IP protection. \u201cThis is the core underlying problem\u201d of building AI solutions for life sciences and related areas like pharmaceutics, said German entrepreneur Robin R\u00f6hm. And not only that: Collaboration when<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":830024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[142041,109564],"tags":[142040,13856],"class_list":{"0":"post-830023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-apheris","8":"category-rethinks","9":"tag-apheris","10":"tag-rethinks"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=830023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/830024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=830023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=830023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=830023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}