Sunthetics

Sunthetics is an AI software company serving chemical, pharmaceutical and materials R&D. Its product, SuntheticsML, is a browser-based platform that lets bench scientists upload experimental data (Excel or CSV), define an optimization target such as yield, purity or cost, and receive recommendations for the next experiments most likely to improve performance. The platform can begin modeling with as few as five experiments or observations, includes a design-of-experiments (DOE) module for teams without existing data, and provides visualization, variable-importance analysis, constraint definition, multi-objective optimization and trade-off analysis. It requires no coding or machine learning expertise from the user.

The company positions the platform as an alternative or complement to traditional statistical DOE and high-throughput experimentation, particularly for systems with many variables, interactions, noise and multiple local optima. Stated applications include reaction understanding and engineering, process characterization and scale-up, formulation optimization, and analytical method development, across catalysis, electrochemistry, photochemistry, mechanochemistry, biocatalytic cascades, separations, enzymatic reactions, biologics, and organic and inorganic chemistry. Beyond self-service software access, Sunthetics offers an Advanced ML Consulting arrangement in which its engineers run optimizations on behalf of a customer.

Sunthetics was co-founded by Daniela Blanco, who serves as CEO; Blanco completed a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at NYU in 2020 and the company originated from work in Brooklyn before the company became headquartered in Texas. The company reports that it is SOC 2 Type II certified and conducts annual penetration tests.

Founding story

The company was co-founded by Daniela Blanco, who earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from NYU Tandon School of Engineering in 2020 and holds multiple patents on sustainable chemical technologies. She describes the company as born at NYU in Brooklyn, developed through university entrepreneurship programs and competitions, with the aim of building a more sustainable chemical industry.

Business model

Sunthetics sells access to SuntheticsML as a cloud-based web application used directly by R&D scientists, and alternatively offers an Advanced ML Consulting agreement under which Sunthetics engineers run optimization campaigns on the customer's behalf.

Revenue comes from access to the SuntheticsML cloud software platform and from consulting engagements in which Sunthetics engineers run optimization projects for clients.

Traction

The company reports customer results including a 67% reduction in experiments for crystallization optimization in a retrospective validation with J-Star Research, a 7% higher faradaic efficiency in an electrochemical reaction optimization using nine experiments and 75% fewer experiments, a 13% better crystal aspect ratio across five crystallization variables using five experiments, and a 40% higher fracture toughness in polymer double networks using four experiments. Other cited outcomes include cutting DNA template synthesis timelines from seven months to five weeks and a 14% manufacturing yield increase. A top-five pharmaceutical company was reported to have achieved 6x faster process development, a 75% reduction in expensive materials and 12% higher efficiency.

Latest developments

Sunthetics was named a co-principal investigator on a $19.5 million National Science Foundation award within the NSF Programmable Cloud Laboratories Test Bed initiative, working with Scripps Research as project lead and UCLA to develop an open, AI-guided platform for high-throughput chemical reaction discovery combining robotics and automation, AI models trained on chemical reactivity data, and open data standards. The project is one of 20 collaborative teams sharing $400 million from the broader NSF program over a four-year national network build-out. The company also presented results of a collaboration with Merck at a Mettler-Toledo-organized Biopharma Roundtable in Basel, Switzerland, and placed second in the L'ATTITUDE Match-Up competition and first in the Inicio Ventures Latinx Startup Hub Tour pitch competition at San Antonio Startup Week in 2024.