AI biotech startup Blank Bio raised a $7.2 million seed round to develop and commercialize RNA foundation models aimed at precision medicine, with an initial focus on oncology. Investors included Define Ventures, Leonis Capital, Nova Threshold, Ripple Ventures, SignalFire, and Y Combinator. Blank Bio is collaborating with PacBio to generate bulk long-read RNA-sequencing data from patient tumor samples to improve model performance. The company plans to generate HiFi-based data spanning up to 100 fresh-frozen tumors across multiple cancer types at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. The round reflects continued investor appetite for foundation-model approaches in life sciences—particularly where additional assay data (here, long-read) can improve downstream clinical and drug-discovery utility.