Montreal-based investor Inovia Capital and Seattle’s Tola Capital co-led the all-equity round, which closed earlier this year, Reliant chief scientific officer Marc Bellemare said in an interview. The startup is based in Montreal and Berlin. (The Logic)

Talking point: Staff at pharmaceutical companies use Reliant’s software to analyze information out of public scientific and clinical data to forecast processes like the outcomes of drug trials or commercialization quicker. The startup uses a fine-tuned version of Meta’s Llama 3.1 open-source large language model, augmented by its own models that can help determine the answers’ accuracy. Reliant is targeting pharma first, but it plans to expand to other sectors that require extensive data review, Bellemare said. “Any industry where there’s a large amount of knowledge work, there will be mental menial labor,” he noted. Reliant will use the new capital to advance its technology, buy more chips to run it on, and expand its 20-person staff.