PALO ALTO, Calif. and VANCOUVER, Jan. 9, 2024 — SandboxAQ today announced it has acquired Good Chemistry, a computational chemistry company that leverages AI, quantum and other advanced technologies for drug discovery and materials design. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Good Chemistry, which spun out of 1Qbit in 2021, is SandboxAQ’s second acquisition and its first in the AI simulation sector. The acquisition will enhance SandboxAQ’s existing computational chemistry and simulation capabilities, adding world-class talent, proven technologies, and deep industry insights gleaned from working with leaders in the life sciences and advanced materials fields, including Dow and the global Japanese chemical manufacturer Dī Ai Shī Kabushiki-gaisha.
“Good Chemistry’s software and existing partnerships will enable us to rapidly accelerate how we bring the benefits of advanced simulation and AI tools to more customers,” said Dr. Nadia Carlsten, Vice President of Product at SandboxAQ. “Combining our capabilities will give SandboxAQ an advanced and scalable computing platform for highly accurate chemical simulation on a scale that makes impactful use cases such as new drug and material synthesis possible.”
Good Chemistry founder and CEO Arman Zaribafiyan will join SandboxAQ as Head of Product for AI Simulation Platforms. The company’s computational and quantum chemists, AI software developers, machine-learning engineers, and quantum computing scientists will join the existing SandboxAQ simulation teams.
“The rapid advances in AI, quantum, cloud and high-performance computing have unlocked endless opportunities for companies like Good Chemistry and SandboxAQ to reinvent the way we think about chemistry, discover ways to make products safer, stronger and more sustainable, and reshape the fabric of our world,” said Zaribafiyan. “Leveraging the broader SandboxAQ reach and domain expertise will supercharge the capabilities of our platform.”
As part of the acquisition, SandboxAQ will integrate Good Chemistry’s software – QEMIST Cloud and Tangelo – into its growing enterprise software portfolio.
QEMIST Cloud is a robust, SaaS-based computational chemistry platform designed to run high-accuracy, high-throughput quantum simulations on both classical and quantum computing hardware. The platform lets customers take advantage of its quantum chemistry capabilities, without investing in new IT infrastructure or needing quantum computing expertise. Its use-cases extend across multiple industries, including biopharma, chemical, oil and gas, automotive, and many others that leverage computational and quantum chemistry for developing advanced new materials. SandboxAQ will continue to develop and scale the platform, adding new technologies and capabilities.
Tangelo is an open-source, quantum computing SDK that supports end-to-end chemistry workflows and enables rapid experimentation across all major quantum cloud providers and quantum hardware devices. Tangelo provides tools to process molecular data, decompose complex chemistry problems, express these problems as quantum programs, execute the programs on cutting-edge hardware, and post-process the results to get the desired level of accuracy. Tagelo features a growing developer community and detailed documents and code available on GitHub.
Good Chemistry is backed by Green Sands Equity and other leading investors including Allianz, Fujitsu, Agentis Capital, and WorldQuant Ventures, who now join the SandboxAQ investor base.
“AI-enabled simulation of matter is the next major technological evolution that will dramatically impact our world – from developing safer, more effective new drugs to designing new advanced materials that will transform entire industries,” said Reema Khan, CEO of Green Sands Equity. “Arman and his team’s adeptness in building record-breaking simulation products at the cutting edge of computing, combined with Sandbox’s world-class team of innovators led by its visionary leader, Jack Hidary, will accelerate the adoption of these powerful simulation technologies. We are incredibly excited that Good Chemistry is joining the SandboxAQ team.”
