Artificial, a Palo Alto-based startup, just announced a $21.5M funding round, including investment from M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, to further develop and commercialize its lab automation software.

The new capability lets scientists simulate and visually inspect automated experiments before robots run them.

Automation can offer labs a vast range of benefits, from improving productivity and accuracy to enabling researchers to focus on less menial tasks. Despite this potential, many labs are hesitant to ...