Back­ers of Tes­la and SpaceX fund 29-year-old Al­ice Zhang's AI-pow­ered neu­ro­science start­up

The bat­tered field of neu­ro­science has a dogged new play­er: a team of young, rene­gade PhDs who say they’re har­ness­ing ge­nomics and ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence to re­vive the ail­ing in­dus­try.

The San Fran­cis­co ven­ture is called Verge Ge­nomics, and it’s led by a spunky 29-year-old PhD dropout — Al­ice Zhang — who says she’s de­ter­mined to push neu­ro­science R&D out of its decades-long slump. Jump­ing to her cause is DFJ Ven­tures, a tech in­vestor who has the likes of Twit­ter, SpaceX, and Tes­la in its port­fo­lio. The VC firm led Verge’s $32 mil­lion Se­ries A round, which was an­nounced this morn­ing. It’s not DFJ’s first rodeo in the field, how­ev­er, as it’s al­ready backed ge­nomics A-lis­ters like Hu­man Longevi­ty and Syn­thet­ic Ge­nomics.

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