Accelerating Discovery: How Atinary Is Bringing Self-Driving Labs™ to the Future of R&D

When Atinary joined the 5-HT Innovators Club on September 10–11, 2025 at KIT Karlsruhe, their vision immediately stood out: a world where AI-driven smart experimentation and robotics radically accelerate scientific discovery.

In our latest 5-HT Startup Story, we spoke with Edlyn Wu (Business Development) and Melchior de Lamotte (R&D Go-to-Market) about how Atinary’s Self-Driving Labs™ and no-code AI platform SDLabs are reshaping workflows in chemistry, pharma, energy, advanced materials, and beyond.

Their mission is bold but simple - make the impossible possible, and transform R&D from trial-and-error into true data-driven innovation.

Edlyn Wu and Melchior de Lamotte (Atinary)

How would you explain your solution in three sentences to a professional colleague in a chemical/pharmaceutical company or other potential client?

Melchior de Lamotte:

Atinary is a Swiss-American deep-tech company accelerating R&D and innovation with AI plus robotics, or what we call Self-Driving Labs^TM. Our no-code AI platform, SDLabs, augments scientists with AI and robotics to efficiently explore the vast chemical space and solve complex optimization challenges much faster, better, and at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional trial-and-error processes like Design of Experiments, etc. Our superior user interface, set of ML algorithms, and data analytics module offer solutions across industries, including pharma, chemicals, energy, advanced materials, and food.

What problem motivated you to start the company?

Melchior de Lamotte:

Our Co-Founders, Dr. Hermann Tribukait and Dr. Loïc Roch, created Atinary to accelerate the discovery of breakthrough materials and address some of the biggest challenges in health, energy, climate, and food. They recognized early that true acceleration in R&D required rethinking how experiments are conducted. By enabling smart experimentation and learning from high quality data, scientists can explore vast chemical and molecular spaces faster, reducing time, cost, and effort from lab to market while achieving discoveries that were previously impossible.

Edlyn Wu:

As a scientist, I’ve experienced how slow and resource-intensive research can be. Every experiment, whether optimizing conditions, troubleshooting, or discovering new molecules, takes time, effort, and cost. There is a real need to rethink how we explore and experiment. How can AI and digital tools support scientists, reduce bottlenecks, and let us focus on science rather than on tedious repetitive tasks? Atinary was founded to do exactly that, creating first the AI platform SDLabs, integrating it with robots and deploying Self-Driving Labs™ to accelerate innovation in every lab.

Atinary Co-Founders Dr. Loïc Roch (left) and Dr. Hermann Tribukait (right)

How do you convince a chemical/pharmaceutical company or another potential client to set up a pilot project with you?

Melchior de Lamotte:

Atinary provides an AI platform that deploys in 1 hour, and delivers results in a matter of weeks. SDLabs lets scientists optimize their experiments with a library of AI/ ML algorithms in their existing workflows, replacing slow trial-and-error with data-driven decision-making. The intuitive interface and entire technology was envisioned and designed by chemists for chemists, with visualization and data analytics tools and the option to integrate with robotic platforms and existing lab systems. Our users do not need to worry about maintaining algorithms, IP and data security, and IT compliance. Atinary is SOC 2 and GDPR compliant, and a partner of AWS, where SDLabs is hosted. Unlike open-source tools that require programmers to deploy and maintain, plus manual integration, SDLabs is ready for immediate adoption and scales across teams and labs.

Edlyn Wu:

From a scientist’s perspective, the impact is tangible. At ETH Zurich SwissCAT+, they explored a space of over 20 million combinations to identify the optimal catalyst for converting CO₂ into methanol, a process relevant to sustainable fuels and green chemistry. This condensed what could represent 100 years of research into just 6 weeks, achieving a 1000× acceleration. At Takeda, in small-molecule process development for drug discovery, certain reactions that normally take 1-2 months are optimized in just a week using AI- and automation-guided closed-loop approach, compared to traditional manual methods. Our approach lets scientists explore broader chemical and materials spaces, tackle complex multi-objective optimization problems, and make faster, data-driven decisions. Seeing researchers focus on innovation, with our algorithms enabling them to solve problems that are intractable with traditional methods. We are making the impossible possible and this is probably the highest value. We aim to help more labs implement faster, smarter, and more efficient R&D.

Who are your current customer (groups) and who do you want your potential customers to be?

Melchior de Lamotte:

Atinary applies its technology across diverse sectors, including green chemistry, energy, food science, flavors and fragrances, specialty chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. For example, industry clients include Takeda on drug discovery and chemical reaction optimization, and DSM-Firmenich - a leading flavors and fragrances company. We also work closely with top universities around the world such as MIT, Stanford, ETH Zurich, DTU, and NYU Abu Dhabi, among many others. We aim to engage with leading companies and organizations looking to accelerate R&D innovation with AI and robotics—whether they are already using these technologies or are just beginning to evaluate solutions that are intuitive, easy to deploy and have an immediate impact on efficiency and productivity on R&D.

Edlyn Wu:

Being at the forefront of conversations with scientists, we have encountered teams who may not yet fully realize how AI can be leveraged in their workflows or tackle complex experimentation in applications like formulation, synthesis, or catalysis R&D. It is part of our responsibility to demonstrate this potential through the practicality of our platform in shortening experimentation cycles, executing faster data-driven decisions, and augmenting scientists focus on their creativity and imagination, letting the algorithms solve complex multi-dimensional challenges and the robots execute the repetitive tasks.

Where do you see yourself in years and how can 5-HT support you?

Melchior de Lamotte:

Atinary is scaling to bring Self-Driving Labs™ technology to more companies and R&D teams. Beyond deploying our AI platform, we are launching a full scale Self-Driving Lab, the Atinary Lab, in Boston with partners such as Takeda, ABB Robotics, Agilent, and Mettler-Toledo. This convergence of AI, robotics, and automation is transforming how R&D and discovery are done. Collaboration with like-minded organizations is essential, and 5-HT can help connect us with the right partners and more scientists ready to drive this next wave of R&D innovation.

Edlyn Wu:

5-HT and Atinary share a mission to make R&D much faster and better, and discover breakthrough materials for a healthier and more sustainable future. By fostering connections across lab scientists, R&D leaders, and innovators, 5-HT helps bridge curiosity and practical adoption of cutting-edge technologies. We value this ecosystem for collaboration, knowledge exchange, and accelerating real-world impact in scientific discovery.

Atinary team Nov 2025

You participated in the 5-HT Innovators Club in September 2025. What is your impression of the event and what have you gained (so far) from participating?

Melchior de Lamotte:

It was our first time at the Innovators Club, and we valued the chance to present Atinary in the startup pitch. The event stood out for its high engagement among scientists, innovators, and companies shaping the future of R&D. Its smaller, focused format made it easier to connect, exchange experiences, and explore practical ways to overcome R&D challenges. We left inspired and continued the discussions on Self-Driving Labs^TM with Alex, bringing him to Lausanne for a podcast-style webinar.

Edlyn Wu:

The event brought together diverse expertise, including chemists, engineers, automation specialists, AI/ML experts, and thought leaders. Just as scientific research advances through collaboration, so does Atinary’s vision of Self-Driving Labs, relying on combined expertise to integrate AI, robotics, and scientists. Events like this inspire ideas, spark innovation, and allow us to showcase the practical impact of our Self-Driving Labs journey in accelerating discovery.

Atinary's Edlyn Wu and Melchior de Lamotte presenting at the 5-HT Innovators Club in September 2025

You might also want to look at

• our previous interview with Atinary: LINK to interview

• the Atinary webinar on the benefits of Self-Driving Labs: LINK to Atinary webinar