Cradle

Overview

Cradle is a Dutch–Swiss biotechnology software company focused on AI-assisted protein engineering. Its platform helps scientists generate and prioritize protein designs, incorporate experimental data, and iterate through design-build-test workflows for pharmaceutical and industrial biotechnology applications.

The company is positioned as a software provider rather than a drug developer or contract manufacturer. It is notable for combining generative machine learning with customer-specific experimental data and for serving multiple protein-engineering markets, including therapeutics, enzymes, food, materials, chemicals, and agriculture.

History

Cradle was founded in 2021 by Stef van Grieken, Jelle Prins, Elise de Reus, Eli Bixby, and Harmen van Rossum. It emerged from stealth in 2022 with €5.5 million in seed funding led by Index Ventures and Kindred Capital. In November 2023, it raised a $24 million Series A led by Index Ventures, bringing reported total funding to $33 million. In 2024, it announced a $73 million Series B led by IVP. The company expanded from offices in Delft and Zurich to locations in Amsterdam, Zurich, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Product Lines

Manufacturing

Cradle does not manufacture consumer products. It develops software and operates an internal laboratory in Amsterdam for research and model validation; customer organizations conduct the biological experiments and manufacture resulting proteins or products.

Notable Products

• Cradle Protein Design Platform - Generative AI software for designing and optimizing proteins against objectives such as activity, stability, expression, binding affinity, and specificity.
• Custom Protein AI Models - A workflow for training and running protein-focused AI models using customer data and experimental results.
• Biopharma Protein Design - AI-assisted design capabilities for therapeutic proteins, including antibodies, vaccines, enzymes, and peptide drugs.
• Industrial Protein Engineering - Protein engineering tools for industrial biotechnology applications such as enzymes, biomaterials, food, chemicals, and agriculture.

Reputation

Cradle is regarded by biotechnology and machine-learning professionals as an emerging platform for shortening protein-engineering iteration cycles and bringing generative AI into laboratory workflows. Its reported strengths include support for different protein modalities, use of customer experimental data, and applications across both biopharma and industrial biotechnology. Publicly disclosed pricing is not available, and the platform’s value depends on experimental validation, data quality, and the ability of customer teams to execute laboratory work. The company remains private and is primarily known as an enterprise research software provider rather than a consumer brand.