The "Information Factory": How Convoke Aims to Solve Biopharma's Multibillion-Dollar Bottleneck with AI

Company & Team Introduction

Convoke was launched in 2024 with a clear mission: to solve the operational chaos that slows down drug development. The company is built on the insight that the greatest bottleneck isn't always the scientific challenge, but the cognitively complex task of coordinating teams, reconciling data, and preparing regulatory submissions. The founding team combines deep industry knowledge with elite technical expertise, creating a powerful "founder-market fit" that has attracted top-tier investors.

• Alex Telford (CEO & Co-founder): A veteran of a major consulting firm, Alex brings deep domain expertise from years advising biopharma companies, giving him a firsthand understanding of the industry's most critical pain points.

• Maged Ahmed & Vikas Velagapudi (Co-founders): As early engineering leaders from Applied Intuition (autonomy software) and Google, Maged and Vikas bring the technical horsepower required to build a scalable, AI-native system capable of managing massive complexity.

Product Overview

Convoke's core offering is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that functions as an "information factory" for biopharma knowledge work. The platform is designed to transform raw, scattered data into the polished, actionable deliverables that drive critical decisions, moving at a speed that manual processes cannot match. This is achieved through a three-stage workflow.

• Ingest & Structure: The platform unifies a company's entire data landscape—from internal documents on SharePoint to external scientific literature—into a single, searchable ontology, eliminating data silos.

• Automate: Expert teams can build and deploy custom AI agents and workflows to codify their decision logic, allowing repetitive knowledge tasks to be run at scale automatically.

• Generate: The platform produces high-quality first drafts of critical documents like manuscripts, competitive intelligence briefs, and landscape analyses in minutes instead of weeks.

Market Opportunity

Convoke is targeting the procedural "white space" that plagues biopharma R&D—a massive, multi-billion dollar problem hidden in plain sight. Every week lost to this manual coordination translates into millions in foregone revenue and longer waits for patients. By focusing on process optimization rather than speculative drug discovery, Convoke positions itself as a pragmatic, high-impact solution in a market rapidly embracing AI.

• Solving the "White Space" Problem: This procedural burden—the work happening between scientific breakthroughs—can consume nearly 50% of a drug’s entire development timeline.

• A Massive, Growing Market: The AI in biopharma market, valued at $1.94 billion in 2025, is projected to surge to over $16 billion by 2034, growing at a staggering 27% CAGR.

• A "Picks and Shovels" Play: Convoke isn't betting on a single drug's success. Instead, it provides the essential tools for the entire industry, offering a faster path to revenue and wider adoption.

• Nobel Prize Validation: The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded for using AI to predict protein structures, has validated the transformative role of AI in the life sciences, fueling industry-wide demand for solutions like Convoke.

Business Model & Traction

Convoke is already demonstrating significant market traction with a diverse client base ranging from agile biotechs to top-20 pharmaceutical giants. The company's recent funding announcement triggered a massive surge in market interest, confirming that its value proposition is resonating powerfully within the industry.

• Explosive Market Interest: Following its funding announcement, Convoke's monthly web visits skyrocketed by an incredible 838.57%, a clear indicator of strong market engagement.

• Enterprise-Ready Security: The platform is SOC 2 compliant and can be deployed on a client's own cloud infrastructure, addressing the non-negotiable data security and privacy needs of large pharmaceutical companies.

• Broad Use Cases: The platform is already being used across critical functions, including competitive intelligence, medical affairs, portfolio strategy, and business development.

Competitors

While the AI biopharma landscape is crowded with players like Lokavant (clinical trial optimization) and Insilico Medicine (AI drug discovery), Convoke has carved out a unique and defensible strategic position. Its key differentiator is its model as a horizontal, foundational platform rather than a vertical, application-specific tool.

• Horizontal vs. Vertical: Unlike competitors focused on a single task like forecasting or discovery, Convoke provides a foundational layer to improve efficiency across the entire drug development lifecycle.

• A Foundational Operating System: Convoke is not a direct competitor to many firms; it's a technology that could serve them all. An AI drug discovery company still needs to manage its internal research and regulatory documents, a process Convoke automates.

• Democratizing Expertise: The platform enables smaller, leaner biotechs to operate with the analytical power and efficiency of a major pharmaceutical company, leveling the playing field and accelerating innovation.

Funding

Convoke's powerful vision and early traction have been validated by a significant seed funding round from some of the most respected names in venture capital.

• $8.6 Million Seed Round: Closed a substantial seed round in August 2025, providing a strong capital base for expansion.

• Top-Tier VCs: The round was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Dimension Capital, a powerful endorsement of the company's team, technology, and market strategy.