AI in Clinical Trials: Biorce closes a €43.8M Series A to accelerate AI in healthcare
- Marc Griffith
- Feb 2
- 3 min read
The Barcelona-based startup Biorce, active in the HealthTech sector and focused on using artificial intelligence for clinical trials, announced the closing of a €43.8 million Series A round to support international expansion, recruit talent, and accelerate product development.
The round features new investments from DST Global Partners, with the expansion of existing investors Norrsken VC and YZR Capital alongside Mustard Seed Maze. Among the angel investors are Arthur Mensch, co-founder and CEO of Mistral AI; Albert Nieto, founder of Seedtag; Paulo Rosado, founder of OutSystems; and Nik Storonsky, CEO of Revolut.
According to Biorce, this operation is the largest Series A ever recorded in the Iberian HealthTech and AI ecosystem. Over 12 months, the startup closed €8.5 million in Seed, including a €3.5 million round in November 2024 and a subsequent €5 million extension from Norrsken VC in the summer of 2025, bringing the total raised to over €50.6 million.
Pedro Coelho, CEO of Biorce, commented: “This round of €52 million, equivalent to €43.8 million, reflects both the scale of the problem and the market’s confidence in our vision. Delays and inefficiencies in clinical trials raise costs, time, and, ultimately, lives. Our mission is to make clinical trials faster, more reliable, and accessible, so that patients can benefit from new treatments as soon as possible.”
Founded in 2024, Biorce aims to cut the costs of clinical trials by more than 50% and bring lifesaving treatments to patients faster.
According to the company, clinical trials take almost 11 years on average and cost about €5.2 billion to bring a drug to market, with 57% of protocols subject to amendments that cause delays. The global annual spending related to trial management is estimated at €101.2 billion. Under the traditional model, each amendment halts patient recruitment for weeks and adds costs ranging from half a million to one million euros, resulting in substantial global expenditure.
Biorce identifies one of the main challenges as the difficulty of justifying design choices to regulators such as the FDA and EMA. To overcome this, it has developed Aika, a native AI platform that shortens protocol preparation times and amendments, accelerating the development of new therapies by up to 50%.
Aika is built on a proprietary database of about one million clinical trials and is designed for pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and CROs, enabling rapid study design without compromising scientific rigor and patient safety. The goal is to streamline protocol development, site selection, and feasibility assessment to boost operational efficiency.
A key feature of Aika compared with other AI solutions in pharma is the comprehensive documentation that accompanies every recommendation, placing the expert at the center and ensuring traceability for regulators. The human-in-the-loop approach keeps professionals in command of the decisions.
According to the company, Aika is already in use across several therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology, and rare diseases. The therapy-agnostic approach enables Biorce to extend AI impact across a range of clinical programs.
The fresh capital will allow Biorce to accelerate its international expansion, particularly toward the United States, where the opening of a development and research hub in Austin, Texas is being prepared. Additionally, the company plans to grow the team to about 250 employees by the end of 2026, focusing on engineering and commercial roles, while accelerating product development. Biorce also reported that last year’s results surpassed revenue targets by about 200 percent.
“The platform is already seeing strong global demand, demonstrating the ability to significantly reduce timelines and costs for pharmaceutical companies and, more importantly, to bring treatments to patients faster than ever before. We are excited to double our investment. Expanding into the United States is a natural step that further solidifies the trajectory toward becoming a leading player in clinical research,” said Tove Larsson, General Partner at Norrsken VC and board member.
In Q1 2026, the team will focus on expanding Aika's protocol intelligence capabilities and introducing new modules, including contract management and negotiation tools. To support growth, Biorce is preparing a move to larger offices in Barcelona to broaden operations.
