BenchSci

We are a software development company, founded in 2015, that builds AI solutions for preclinical research and development. Our goal is to help scientists accelerate life-saving research by providing biomedical artificial intelligence.

We developed ASCEND, a neurosymbolic AI platform that understands disease biology. ASCEND uses a Biological Evidence Knowledge Graph (BEKG) that combines various scientific data, including publications, multi-omics, and clinical trials. This platform offers AI copilots and co-scientists, and can also incorporate clients’ internal data to create custom disease biology maps.

Our data approach includes licensed closed-access journals, public data, and proprietary client data. The BEKG organizes over 400 million entities and a billion relationships, verified by multimodal AI and human scientists.

In 2017, we launched our first application, AI-Assisted Antibody Selection, which helps guide the selection of various reagents. Today, our platform supports research at 16 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,300 leading research centers globally. We are backed by investors like F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), Inovia Capital, TCV, and Generation Investment Management.

Our mission is to simplify complex disease biology to improve patient outcomes. We do this by using neuro-symbolic AI, tackling disease biology, which is often a key reason drug discovery projects fail.

Our core values spell out FASTT:

• Focus: We prioritize work that has the biggest impact for scientists and patients.
• Advancement: We are always learning and improving.
• Speed: We move quickly and purposefully, breaking down tasks and making decisions with the information we have.
• Tenacity: We persevere through difficult problems, setbacks, and explore many different solutions.
• Transparency: We communicate openly and share information to empower our teams.

BenchSci is a remote-first company with 201-500 employees. Its Toronto team follows a hybrid model, balancing remote work with in-office collaboration.

The work environment emphasizes urgency, prioritizing clear outcomes over complex processes. Collaboration is key across scientific, engineering, product, and design teams. BenchSci takes an AI-first approach, encouraging all employees to experiment with and use AI tools. As a global company, flexible working hours may be needed to support worldwide partners.

BenchSci values continuous improvement, quick learning, and adapting based on evidence. Employees who succeed here take ownership, are proactive, comfortable with ambiguity, and persistent in solving tough problems. The company supports growth through challenging work, capability building, and evolving roles as BenchSci expands.

We offer a comprehensive compensation package, including equity options.

Our benefits include:

• Time Off: Generous vacation policy with an extra day earned each year, 14 company holidays, and unlimited flex time for personal days, sick days, and religious holidays.
• Health & Wellness: Full health and dental coverage, mental health support, telemedicine, and an Employee Assistance Program.
• Family Support: Parental leave with top-ups or dedicated paid time off.
• Financial & Professional Growth: Short-term and long-term disability, an annual budget for learning and development, internal training, manager roundtables, and an anniversary recognition program. We also offer a lifestyle spending account, a one-time home office setup budget, and retirement savings with an employer match.
• Community & Collaboration: For our Toronto team, we have a hybrid work model with regular in-office collaboration. We also host team and company-wide gatherings, virtual events, monthly “Snapshots” for company updates and Q&A with leadership, local “Chapter” events, and employee affinity groups.