A spinoff of Alphabet (Nasdaq:Goog) – SandboxAq – today announced it has acquired a B.C. company -- a spinoff of Vancouver’s 1Qbit -- that specializes in using computational chemistry to accelerate drug discovery and materials design.
The deal is being described as a talent acquisition.
“Acquiring Good Chemistry adds 25 computational and quantum chemists, AI and software engineers, and quantum computing scientists to SandboxAQ - along with significant domain expertise from working with Dow Chemical and other,” SandboxAQ notes in a press release.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the Wall Street Journal said "sources with knowledge of the acquisition" put the value of the deal at US$75 million.
SandboxAQ is a spinout of Alphabet. It is a software as a service (SaaS) company in the AI and quantum technology space.
Good Chemistry was a spinout of another Vancouver company, 1Qbit, which specializes in AI for quantum computing. Good Chemistry specializes in quantum chemistry simulation for designing materials and drugs. Good Chemistry’s QEMIST Cloud platform uses machine learning, quantum computing and “emerging algorithms in quantum chemistry.”
The company was featured in Wired Magazine in July for its computational approach to potentially solving the problem of “forever chemicals.”
Good Chemistry founder and CEO Arman Zaribafiyan will become SandboxAQ’s 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 press release stated.
“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,” Zaribafiyan said. “Leveraging the broader SandboxAQ reach and domain expertise will supercharge the capabilities of our platform.”
