# Profluent

> Profluent is an AI-first protein design company building frontier models that author novel proteins - including the first AI-designed CRISPR gene editor, OpenCRISPR-1. Based in Berkeley's biotech corridor, the company applies the same scaling-law playbook that worked for language models to the language of biology, then validates the outputs in a wet lab.

- **Founded:** 2022
- **Headquarters:** Berkeley, California, United States
- **Founders:** Ali Madani (Founder & CEO), Alexander Meeske (Co-founder)
- **Team size:** ~53
- **Products:** OpenCRISPR-1, ProGen3, Protein Atlas, proseLM / Protein2PAM, Partner Programs
- **Notable:** First to publish a large language model that generates functional proteins (Nature Biotechnology, 2023)., Successfully edited the human genome with OpenCRISPR-1, the first AI-designed gene editor (April 2024)., Demonstrated scaling laws for protein design models with ProGen3 (2025).

## Products & services

- **OpenCRISPR-1** — The first AI-designed, open-source gene editor; a Cas9-like nuclease >400 mutations from SpCas9 that successfully edits the human genome.
- **ProGen3** — Profluent's latest frontier protein language model family used to generate compact, functional gene editors and other biologics.
- **Protein Atlas** — An internal data resource of more than 115 billion protein sequences used to train Profluent's foundation models.
- **proseLM / Protein2PAM** — Steerable protein design tools that condition generation on structure, function and target PAM specificity.
- **Partner Programs** — Bespoke protein design for therapeutics, antibodies, enzymes and recombinases under collaboration agreements.

## Achievements

- First to publish a large language model that generates functional proteins (Nature Biotechnology, 2023).
- Successfully edited the human genome with OpenCRISPR-1, the first AI-designed gene editor (April 2024).
- Demonstrated scaling laws for protein design models with ProGen3 (2025).
- Raised a combined $149M+ in total funding, with $106M closed in late 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2025-11** — Raised $106M co-led by Altimeter Capital and Bezos Expeditions to scale frontier protein models.
- **2025-04** — Announced Eli Lilly partnership and released ProGen3-designed compact gene editors.
- **2024-04** — Released OpenCRISPR-1 to the public and demonstrated successful human genome editing.

## Links

- Website: https://www.profluent.bio
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/profluent-bio
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ProfluentBio
- GitHub: https://github.com/Profluent-AI
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Profluent-Bio

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/profluent
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-18