Led · Series A · Dec 2024

NeuroKaire develops a clinical test that uses a simple blood draw and patient‑derived neurons to provide a neuronal readout of antidepressant effects, combined with clinical data and a pharmacogenetic screen covering 132 drugs. The test is designed to help clinicians identify the optimal antidepressant for individual patients, reduce trial‑and‑error prescribing, and enable faster, lower‑dose, and safer treatment. NeuroKaire also positions its technology for pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners to bring precision medicine into drug development across psychiatry and neurology. The company said it will use new funding to scale operations, expand its team, deepen research and development, and expand pharmaceutical partnerships focused on multiple psychiatric and neurological diseases. The announcement highlights ongoing efforts to expand pharmaceutical collaborations and to deploy the test in clinical and drug‑development settings. The company is based in Kearny, N.J. Genetika+ builds personalized medicine solutions for psychiatric and neurological diseases using its Brain-in-a-Dish technology. The company’s first indication, NeuroKaire, rapidly tests more than 70 approved antidepressants and combinations against an individual patient’s neurological biomarkers. Genetika+ combines these functional readouts with patients’ genetic and medical history to predict optimal drug or combination therapies, aiming to reduce trial-and-error prescribing, side effects, and time to effective treatment. The platform is positioned to enable faster treatment, lower dosing, and fewer adverse outcomes versus current practice. Several clinical studies are underway and additional trials are planned to further validate the tool. Genetika+ was founded in 2018 by Talia Cohen-Solal and Daphna Laifenfeld and is based in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Led · Series A · Sep 2021

Platomics offers a cloud software platform that automates the analysis of genetic tests and bundles the certification labs will need to comply with the EU IVDR rules (effective from 2022). The product targets laboratories that previously developed and ran their own tests and now must meet new EU regulatory standards. Customers pay per gene test to use the analysis software and certification package; exact pricing remains confidential. The software runs on servers hosted in Europe and can be deployed to specific countries (for example, Austria) at the customer's request. The company says it is focusing on commercializing the platform across Europe and has partnerships with leading international reagent manufacturers that support broader market reach. Platomics has grown quietly to about 75 employees and positions itself to serve the personalized-medicine market by ensuring scientifically reliable test results for patients. Founded in 2014 as a spin‑off of the Austrian Institute of Technology, the company emphasizes its regulatory-ready offering as a market differentiator.

Led · Equity · Jun 2021

Angstrom Bio is an Austin, Texas–based company founded in 2019 that develops sequencing-based molecular diagnostics. The company uses an AMPD technology that combines a library prep step introducing short barcodes to PCR products with bioinformatics to demultiplex reads and perform error correction on Oxford Nanopore sequencing data. Angstrom pivoted from antibody therapeutics to SARS-CoV-2 diagnostics at the start of the pandemic and is launching a nanopore sequencing–based test to simultaneously detect SARS-CoV-2 infection and identify variants. It is also developing a multiplexed respiratory panel for differential diagnosis of common respiratory pathogens including endemic coronaviruses, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, parainfluenza, adenovirus, and several other viruses and bacteria. The company announced a $3 million private financing and said the funds will be used to launch the SARS-CoV-2/variant test and to develop the respiratory panel. Both tests will initially be performed at a CLIA high-complexity lab in Austin in partnership with TeVido BioDevices.

Led · Series C · Sep 2019

GNA Biosolutions develops a point-of-care molecular diagnostic platform using proprietary PCA technology that captures and amplifies nucleic acids from complex clinical samples. PCA assays are being developed for multiple therapeutic areas including infectious diseases and biothreats. The company’s first Point of Care product is intended for diagnosis of antibiotic-resistant hospital acquired infections (HAIs) and tuberculosis (TB). Management is led by co-founder and Managing Director Federico Buersgens and the company is based in Munich, Germany. GNA raised $13.5M in a Series C to advance development and secure IVD-CE marking of its first POC molecular diagnostic platform. PCA technology has not been cleared or approved by European or U.S. regulatory agencies and is currently for research use only. GNA Biosolutions GmbH is a Munich-based manufacturer of ultrafast pathogen diagnostic instruments that uses a laser-based PCR process. Founded in 2010 and spun out of the Institute for Photonics and Optoelectronics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, the company is led by Drs. Lars Ullerich, Federico Bürsgens and Joachim Stehr. Its core product is the Pharos400 instrument; the laser component enables PCR thermo-cycling and rapid readout to diagnose bacterial diseases within minutes without time-consuming laboratory diagnostics. The technology extracts and amplifies specific DNA sequences for pathogen detection. GNA raised €6m in a Series B financing to bring the Pharos400 to market maturity. Investors in the round include Robert Bosch Venture Capital as lead, with participation from SHS Gesellschaft für Beteiligungsmanagement GmbH, b-to-v Partners, UnternehmerTUM-Fonds and existing shareholders Mey Capital Matrix and KfW.

Led · Series A · Feb 2017

Ceres Nanosciences develops the proprietary Nanotrap nanoparticle technology to capture biomarkers and process bio-fluids for diagnostic use. The company is commercializing a urine-based Lyme antigen test designed for early, highly sensitive, point-of-care detection. Nanotrap was invented at George Mason University and its development has been supported by NIH, DARPA, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Last year Ceres received a $980K award from the U.S. Department of Defense to adapt Nanotrap for immune marker capture, in collaboration with Tufts University and George Mason University. Ceres is a privately held Prince William Science Accelerator startup and says it aims to gain FDA approval for the Lyme test within two years. The company intends to pursue multiple diagnostic applications for the Nanotrap platform and projects the addressable Lyme testing market could exceed $100 million within five years of launch.