Outer Bio, backed by Lady Gaga, raises $23 million to train AI on living human skin

Outer Bio, the AI biotech startup backed by Lady Gaga, has made its public debut and said it has raised about $23 million. The company’s investors include Wing Venture Capital, Initialized Capital, SV Angel, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Hawktail, the fund run by co-founder and CEO Michael Polansky. Outer Bio’s platform, called Yuna, keeps donated human skin alive outside the body for four weeks and uses the living tissue’s response to drugs or ingredients to train machine-learning models. Polansky said biology data, not compute, is now the bottleneck for AI progress. Outer Bio said its platform has recorded more than 10,000 treatment data points from over 300 donors, with each sample generating more than 30,000 measurements. The company is currently offering platform access to biopharma teams and consumer brands. Outer Bio said the technology is designed to offer a human alternative that could help regulators reduce unnecessary animal testing. In Europe, sales of cosmetics tested on animals have been banned since 2013.