Summary
- A $6.9 million funding round anchored by Maelstrom Fund fuels Bio Protocol’s growth into a full-stack platform for AI-driven decentralized science (DeSci).
- The funding round coincides with the launch of Bio V2, which introduces onchain fundraising and decentralized AI-driven frameworks to early-stage scientific research and development.
- Researchers, patients and the crypto community can use BioAgents to generate scientific hypotheses, monetize discoveries and surface hidden insights across biology faster than legacy biotech.
- The first BioAgent - recently launched in partnership with longevity research collective VitaDAO and the renowned longevity researcher Dr. Aubrey de Grey - has seen its $AUBRAI token rise 150X in value from its pre-sale FDV ($269K to $40M) while generating 1K+ scientific hypotheses minted onchain in its first weeks live.
- Bio plans to expand the BioAgent framework globally to other researchers and labs, creating a network of decentralized science machines that build and monetize biotech research outside traditional pharma structures.
A Platform for AI-Driven Decentralized Science
Bio Protocol enables distributed groups of researchers, patients and crypto users to create and grow AI-driven research networks that automate scientific tasks and monetize biotech discoveries.
While AI in biology is rapidly advancing through initiatives at Google, OpenAI, and Stanford, most scientific AI tools remain siloed in traditional pharma and cut off from global collaboration. Bio integrates scientific AI with blockchain features for coordination, funding and data integrity, allowing biotech research to move more rapidly from hypothesis to commercial application.
Paul Kohlhaas, founder and CEO of Bio Protocol, said: “Science today is locked in institutional black boxes, cut off from the very researchers who birth it and the communities primed to accelerate it. By unifying AI, biotech, and crypto in a decentralized platform, researchers and citizen scientists everywhere can collaborate more efficiently and back promising biotech from its earliest stages, compress R&D timelines by years.”
Arthur Hayes, founder and CIO of Maelstrom Fund, added: “Bio is about to be the category-defining launchpad which will fund scientific research the community finds appealing, not just academics. If it works, it’s not just a launchpad - it’s the birth of an AI-native research market.”
Introducing Bio Protocol V2
The launch of Bio V2 introduces onchain funding mechanics, incentive structures and agentic AI infrastructure.
Key features include:
- Ignition Sales: A launch model enabling low-cap, high-velocity fundraising for Decentralized Scientific AI Agents (BioAgents) and tokenized intellectual property (IP Tokens), lowering barriers for early supporters.
- BioXP: A loyalty and incentive system rewarding positive-sum contributions such as staking, research inputs and social engagement, while granting access to Ignition Sales.
- Staking: BIO and ecosystem tokens can be staked to earn BioXP, aligning long-term support with participatory rights in resulting IP..
BioAgents: Onchain Science Machines
BioAgents are decentralized AI agents designed to accelerate and reduce the cost of scientific development while maintaining blockchain-verified knowledge flows.
The first BioAgent, Aubrai, launched in August 2025 in partnership with VitaDAO and Dr. Aubrey de Grey, a leading longevity researcher. Trained on Dr. de Grey’s lab data and community insights, Aubrai has in its first weeks live:
- Generated $900,000+ in research funding
- Minted more than 1,000 hypotheses onchain; and
- Enabled immediate lab testing with agent-managed wallets & research workflows.
BioAgents offer key features like:
- Continuous Funding & Data: BioAgents are connected to onchain wallets that collect fees, make payments and redistribute value to fund wet-lab experiments and trials, enabling research to start immediately once vetted, rather than languishing in traditional funding cycles. Integration of lab data means BioAgents are connected to live experiments, not just published literature.
- Crowdsourced Learning: BioAgents learn continuously from encrypted research vaults, integrated social platforms, and global scientific collaboration. Each agent is capable of cross-domain intelligence, enabling AI-driven drug discovery to occur across a range of biotech fields.
- Blockchain-Verified Knowledge Flow: BioAgents create an immutable trail of blockchain-verified scientific progress, ensuring credit and rewards flow back to contributors whose early insights or negative results paved the way for discoveries.
- Knowledge Monetization: BioAgents generate fees by providing insights, compounds and services to pharma companies, consumers and other research organizations, as well as via market-making fees in the agent’s native token.
Real-World Assets Overlooked by Pharma Advancing Rapidly
Bio Protocol’s ecosystem has already supported projects moving toward clinical reality at a fraction of traditional biotech costs and timelines:
- VITA-FAST – longevity program progressing toward Phase 2 clinical trials in the UAE.
- VitaRNA – RNA program dosing first patients in the UAE, with expansion planned in Europe.
- Percepta (CLAW) – brain health supplement entering human studies with accelerating regulatory pathways.
- Curetopia (CURES) – rare disease program uniting ~40 inherited metabolic diseases, advancing pilot studies and IP filings.
These projects demonstrate how decentralized scientific funding and coordination can bring therapies from concept to trial in months rather than years.
Strategic Funding Round
Bio’s $6.9M round was anchored by Maelstrom Fund, joined by Mechanism Capital, Animoca Brands, Presto Labs and a diverse syndicate of biotech and crypto investors. Bio will use the funding to advance its launchpad and AI-driven software for science, while integrating features like onchain prediction markets, lending markets and agent-to-agent communication.
Since 2024, Bio Protocol’s network has directed over $50M in scientific funding to researchers globally, offering an alternative amid deep cuts to traditional scientific funding worldwide.
“Just as digital publishing platforms gave creators the ability to build and monetize audiences outside traditional media, Bio Protocol empowers scientists to build and monetize research outside traditional pharma structures,” said Kohlhaas.
About Bio Protocol
Bio Protocol is a decentralized science (DeSci) platform supporting the launch and growth of AI-driven biotech projects. By breaking down traditional barriers and introducing decentralized scientific funding, Bio accelerates drug discovery, reduces costs, and makes biotech innovation more accessible to researchers and patients worldwide.
Website: www.bio.xyz
