Key facts
- Proximal plans pre-seed and seed checks of $500,000 to $1.5 million, per founder Sahir Raoof.
- Backers include VC firms SignalFire and Kleiner Perkins and Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments.
- Individual investors include Dimension Capital co-founders Nan Li and Zavain Dar.
- Amy Abernethy, co-founder of Highlander Health, is also an investor in the fund.
- Raoof previously worked at SignalFire, Iterative Health and Flatiron Health.
- ChronicleBio uses AI to analyze biological and medical data for chronic disease research.
Proximal Ventures, founded by Sahir Raoof, raised $27.5 million for its first fund, according to a TechCrunch report published November 10, 2026. The firm is betting that AI can change the tools, infrastructure and services that support drug development, a market where pharmaceutical companies have long outsourced work to specialized providers.
Raoof told TechCrunch that pharma has historically been seen as a weak buyer of software but a strong buyer of services. He said AI could automate much of that work, letting startups deliver the same services at lower cost and in less time, and pointed to law and finance as service industries where AI has already found valuable uses.
Proximal plans to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups with checks from $500,000 to $1.5 million. It has already backed six startups, including ChronicleBio, co-founded by former OpenAI executive Fidji Simo, which uses AI to analyze biological and medical data to understand chronic diseases and identify potential treatments.
Before spending two years as a principal at SignalFire, Raoof led business development at clinical trial recruitment startup Iterative Health and oversaw partnerships at Flatiron Health, an oncology data company Roche acquired for $1.9 billion in 2018. Proximal's backers include SignalFire, Kleiner Perkins, Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments and individual investors including Dimension Capital co-founders Nan Li and Zavain Dar.
Amy Abernethy, co-founder of Highlander Health and a former principal deputy commissioner of the FDA, is also an investor. She met Raoof at Flatiron Health, where she was chief medical officer, and told TechCrunch his ability to build relationships and spot industry bottlenecks left a lasting impression. She said those qualities have helped Proximal invest alongside larger, better-known funds.