Valthos, a New York-based biodefense startup, has launched out of stealth with $30 million in seed funding from the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund. The company brings together a team from Palantir, DeepMind, the Broad Institute, and the Arc Institute, aiming to build the “tech stack for biodefense.”
As synthetic biology and advanced AI converge, Valthos is racing to develop systems that can spot dangerous pathogens and update medical countermeasures in real-time, offering a critical new layer of defense as governments and health agencies confront risks never seen before.
“Life itself has become programmable,” says Valthos. Valthos sees the emerging landscape as requiring tools that match the speed and complexity of evolving biotechnologies. Their solution promises rapid recognition of infectious agents and the ability to neutralize outbreaks and new threats on a timeline measured in hours, not months.
Valthos builds AI systems to analyze biological sequences and instantly update medical treatments. Their infrastructure is rooted in distributed software, advanced ML method development, and domain-specific expertise in biotechnology. The goal is to shift medical responses from static, slow-moving stockpiles to a dynamic, precision model capable of adapting to emerging pathogens in real time.
Strategic Importance
The $30 million seed round was co-led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund. OpenAI’s involvement highlights growing institutional concern over programmable biology as a dual-use risk for civilization. Jason Kwon, OpenAI’s Chief Strategy Officer, said: “Biodefense is one of those verticals where an industrial ecosystem of startups can help the U.S. lead as AI changes everything”.
Valthos is hiring engineers and researchers to scale its platform for government and life science partners, with the objective of supplying responsive, AI-powered solutions for biodefense.
According to Valthos and supporting reports, the dual-use nature of modern biotech means it’s now faster to weaponize biology than to create defenses or cures. This concern echoes RAND Corporation’s recent warning: governments remain unprepared for the cascading risks enabled by AI, leaving populations exposed to sudden biological or cyber crises.
AI’s growing power can help flip the script. Valthos’s platform aims to shrink the timeline from threat detection to medical response from months to hours, using AI to analyze data from environmental sources, sequence pathogens, and adapt countermeasures as threats evolve.
Valthos joins a wave of startups focused on AI-powered defense, such as BigBear.ai and C3.ai, which are applying machine intelligence to logistics, threat detection, and operational readiness. Valthos’s unique focus sits at the intersection of AI, biotech, and national security, a sector predicted to see double-digit annual growth over the next decade.
Its product includes partnerships with pharmaceutical firms and government agencies for surveillance, rapid drug development, and deployment of medical countermeasures, while leveraging contracts in biosurveillance and environmental data analysis.
Valthos’s founders, Kathleen McMahon (ex-Palantir), Tess van Stekelenburg (ex-Oxford/DeepMind), and Victor Mao (ex-DeepMind), argue that “the only way forward is to be faster.” Their thesis is that effective biodefense in the programmable era requires technology that can react, adapt, and scale as quickly as biotechnology itself evolves.
Valthos wants to build the backbone for adaptive, precision medicine, a tech stack that can arm governments and public health officials for a world where biological threats move at the speed of code.
With $30 million in fresh backing, Valthos is bringing together experts, AI talent, and pharma partners to build the software infrastructure for a world where biological risks are rising. The promise is not just improved public health, but a defense posture ready for the realities of programmable, dual-use threats.
