
Apheris delivers enterprise-grade AI applications for drug discovery, designed for pharma companies to run and customize securely within their own IT environments. By keeping all data local, organizations maintain full sovereignty over IP-sensitive assets. These local deployments also serve as the foundation for Apheris-hosted federated data networks, where pharma companies collaboratively train and benchmark models on proprietary datasets to unlock more robust and generalizable models for drug discovery.

Apheris delivers enterprise-grade AI applications for drug discovery, designed for pharma companies to run and customize securely within their own IT environments. By keeping all data local, organizations maintain full sovereignty over IP-sensitive assets. These local deployments also serve as the foundation for Apheris-hosted federated data networks, where pharma companies collaboratively train and benchmark models on proprietary datasets to unlock more robust and generalizable models for drug discovery.
What they do: Enterprise-grade federated computing and local AI applications for drug discovery
Headquarters / founding: Berlin; founded 2019
Founders: Robin Röhm (CEO), Michael Höh (CTO)
Employees: 47
Total funding (reported): USD 37,050,000
Notable investors / partners: OTB Ventures, eCAPITAL; partners include pharma members of AISB consortium
| Company |
|---|
Federated computing and privacy-preserving AI for life sciences / drug discovery (protein complex prediction, ADMET, antibody developability).
2019
Life sciences / AI for drug discovery
USD 8,250,000
TechCrunch reported this tranche and noted the round brought total funding to USD 20.8M (as of Jan 2, 2025); other sources report differing aggregated totals.
“Seed investors included LocalGlobe and angels such as Patrick Pichette and Ian Hogarth; later institutional participation includes OTB Ventures, eCAPITAL, Octopus Ventures and Heal Capital.”
About Apheris
At Apheris, we are building the future of how AI is applied in pharmaceutical R&D.
We enable leading pharmaceutical teams to discover and develop drugs faster. We host the industry’s largest federated data networks for drug discovery AI, spanning co-folding, ADMET, and antibody developability.
Across these networks, models are trained on proprietary industry datasets to achieve higher performance and broader applicability while keeping data control and IP protected. We deliver these superior models through drug discovery applications that enable teams to run them at scale, further customize them, and integrate them into existing R&D workflows.
AI Structural Biology (AISB) Network
: Eight top-20 pharma companies collaborate in the field of co-folding, structure-based binding affinity predictions and antibody design.
ADMET Network:
Five top-50 pharma and biotechs collaborate to improve small-molecule property prediction and expand to further drug modalities (e.g., PROTACs).
Antibody Developability Network:
Pharma partners collaborate to federate historical and purpose-built antibody developability datasets for secure ML training, without data leaving each partner’s environment.
About the role
We are hiring a Technical Chief of Staff to the CTO to act as a force multiplier for our technical and product organization. This is a hands-on, execution-focused role at the center of product development, customer engagement, and cross-functional delivery. You will work directly with the CTO to ensure technical priorities translate into high-quality customer outcomes, clear internal execution, and reduced iteration overhead.
You will serve as the CTO’s proxy across customer preparation, technical follow-ups, and internal coordination. You will operate with significant autonomy and discretion from day one. You will be expected to anticipate issues, surface trade-offs, and keep the organization focused and moving at pace. This role is designed for someone with a strong technical foundation who thrives in fast-paced environments, enjoys turning ambiguity into concrete outputs, and is comfortable operating in front of customers.
What you will do
You will operate as an execution partner and force-multiplier, ensuring the right things happen quickly and to a high standard.
What we expect from you
Nice to have
What we offer you
Own preparation for technical customer meetings, including:
Ensure strong follow-ups after customer meetings:
As soon as possible: be able to run technical
customer meetings, bringing in subject-matter experts as needed and ensuring high-quality outcomes.
Strong technical background (e.g. computer science, engineering, sciences, or related field) with the ability to understand and communicate complex systems end-to-end, across infrastructure, ML models, data flows, and product workflows.
2-7+
years of experience in fast-paced, high-output environments such as strategy consulting (e.g., MBB), venture capital, or high-growth startups or scaleups.
Ability to build a solid working understanding of the full technical stack and communicate effectively with infrastructure engineers, ML engineers, scientists, and product managers.
Strong capability to distill complex and fragmented technical input into clear summaries, structured options, and decision-ready recommendations for leadership and customers.
Comfort operating across levels of abstraction, from high-level system architecture and workflows to concrete implementation approaches and technical assumptions.
Ability to operate with ambiguity, proactively propose initial solutions, and use structured drafts (e.g. architecture diagrams, workflows, outlines) to accelerate alignment and progress.
Strong proficiency in core tools, including Atlassian suite, PowerPoint, product prototyping tools like Lovable/Bolt and ability to build high-quality materials fast, using modern AI and productivity tools.
Excellent execution skills, organization, and attention to detail, with a strong ownership mindset and focus on outcomes rather than tasks.
High ownership mindset; you take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with confidence in customer-facing settings. English: C2 level; German optional.
Comfort working in a remote-first environment across distributed teams.
Curiosity and willingness to learn about AI-driven drug discovery, the broader life sciences ecosystem, and Apheris’ customers .