• Hemotune

  Participated · Series B · Mar 2024

  Hemotune is a developer of blood‑purification technology based on nano magnetic beads. The company has built a bead‑based blood‑purification platform intended for treatment of human diseases. Hemotune recently completed a CHF14 million Series B financing. The round was led by Belmondo, with existing investors VP Venture Partners, HEMEX, OCCIDENT and Zürcher Kantonalbank continuing to participate and EFI joining the round. Proceeds from the financing will be used to advance development of the company’s HemoSystem, described as a breakthrough blood‑purification platform based on nano‑engineered magnetic beads. No operating metrics, founding year, or location were provided in the article. Hemotune’s core product, HemoSystem, is a blood purification platform that mixes nanoengineered magnetic beads directly with patients’ blood in a dialysis-like machine and removes beads and bound targets via a magnetic filter before recirculation. The company says the system offers much higher efficiency and precision compared with existing methods. Its first therapy under development is designed to restore adequate immune response in sepsis-associated immunosuppression. Hemotune intends to use the recent funding to complete preclinical development of HemoSystem and to prepare a clinical trial in sepsis, its lead indication. The company highlights sepsis as an underserved global health issue that leads to around 11 million deaths annually. Hemotune was founded in 2017 as a spin-off from ETH Zurich and is being accelerated by Wyss Zurich. The company closed a CHF 7.25 million Series B1 to support these development and clinical-preparation efforts. Hemotune AG is a spin‑off from ETH Zurich (founded 2017) developing HemoSystem, a blood purification platform that mixes nanoengineered magnetic beads directly with patient blood in a dialysis‑like machine. The beads are roughly 300 times smaller than a red blood cell and are coated with selective binding agents to capture disease‑related compounds. While blood flows through a magnetic filter, beads and bound targets are removed before recirculation, with the aim of removing substances that play key roles in immune response and sepsis. With the Series A close hemotune will accelerate preclinical development of HemoSystem and pursue first launches in Europe. The company is incubated at Wyss Zurich and is positioning the technology for septic shock and other indications, with potential relevance to COVID‑19. Hemotune has built industry partnerships to support geographic expansion, notably with Korean partner GCMS for Asian market entry. The company has raised more than CHF 10 million in total since incorporation.

• Bottneuro

  Participated · Equity · Dec 2022

  Bottneuro is developing the Miamind® Neurostimulator, a non-invasive, wearable, 3D-printed headset system that delivers periodic brain stimulation sessions for use at home or in clinical settings. The system pairs software and hardware — a large tablet, soft brush electrodes (no shaving needed), and an electronics neckpiece — and uses resulting 3D‑PET data to target affected brain regions. Pre-clinical data cited by the company suggest induced neuronal oscillations may reduce Aβ plaques and phosphorylated tau and modulate microglial inflammation. The startup has filed multiple patents and is building know-how in mass customization of cap design and individualized stimulation patterns to limit replicability. Bottneuro has academic and industry partnerships (including Samsung and Dätwyler Group) and previously received CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick in 2021. The team operates from offices in Basel. Clinical trials are planned to start in Switzerland in 2023, with a target for regulatory approval by 2025. The company says a recent capital increase places it in a stable position to accelerate development. Bottneuro develops a personalized Alzheimer’s therapy platform that combines early PET-based diagnosis with patient-specific electrical brain stimulation delivered via tailor-made, 3D‑printed headsets and a control tablet. The company will advance its patented NENI neuromodulation platform to refine stimulation protocols. Bottneuro plans to fabricate an initial series of 100 devices and to start clinical trials in 2022, with the first PET scan centers scheduled for establishment in 2023. To support these plans the startup received CHF 150,000 from Venture Kick, complemented by a Kick Fund investment, and is planning a CHF 10 million Series A in 2022–2023. Management and board experience include co-founder and CEO Bekim Osmani and former country presidents of Medtronic and Novartis serving on the board, which the company cites as support for business development. The funds are intended to set up PET scan centers and to advance business development and product preparation.

• Scailyte

  Participated · Series A · Aug 2020

  Scailyte develops ScaiVision, an AI-powered single-cell omics data analysis platform that analyzes millions of individual cells to identify precise molecular biomarker profiles and link them to clinical outcomes. The ETH spinoff, founded in 2017 and based in Basel, focuses on accelerating drug development and improving clinical trial and personalized cancer‑therapy success rates through multimodal biomarker discovery. ScaiVision has been tested in clinical settings including CAR‑T cell therapies and projects in endometriosis and solid tumors. Strategic partners such as Nilogen, Volv Global and Sirona DX collaborate with Scailyte to advance personalized therapies against cancers and rare diseases. The company recently raised new funding to expand U.S. partnerships in immuno‑oncology and further develop its biomarker technology. Leadership reports growing commercial traction and validation of market need from small patient‑population studies. Scailyte combines single-cell technologies, high-quality datasets and machine learning methods to identify disease-specific biomarkers with a focus on oncology and immunology. Its data analysis platform, ScaiVision, associates multimodal single-cell datasets (RNA-/TCR-/BCR-seq, proteomics, etc.) with clinical endpoints such as diagnosis, progression, severity and treatment response to identify ultra-sensitive biomarker signatures. The company is led by Founder & CEO Dr. Peter Nestorov and is a spin-off of ETH Zurich based in Basel, Switzerland. In a Series A round the company raised CHF6M. The funding round was led by a Swiss family office, Mirabaud bank and existing backers. Scailyte said it will use the proceeds to accelerate growth, expand operations and broaden its business reach. Scailyte is a digital health company that discovers ultrasensitive biomarkers and develops in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) using single-cell technologies and its proprietary data analysis platform, ScaiVision. ScaiVision processes and interprets single-cell proteomics data (mass and flow cytometry) and includes core functionality for analysing single-cell transcriptomics data. The company is advancing assays in the rapidly emerging single-cell data technology field and aims to enable clinical applications of single-cell data. Scailyte plans to build upon its biomarker and IVD pipeline and to develop first clinical applications using single-cell biomarkers. Its pipeline includes biomarker candidates for endometriosis and CTCL, each with a market potential of several hundred million Francs, according to the company. Scailyte completed a pre-series A financing round, raising CHF3.7 million to accelerate development of assays, its biomarker and IVD pipeline, and clinical applications. Scailyte builds artificial intelligence–based software, marketed as ScaiVision, to analyze complex single-cell data for biomedical research, pharmaceutical discovery and precision diagnostics. The company also offers biomarker discovery services to complement customers' analyses with a single-cell perspective. ScaiVision was scheduled for commercial launch at the beginning of 2019 and the company intends to use new funding to accelerate its development and market entry. Scailyte has begun its first clinical study and is negotiating biomarker-discovery engagements with leading blue-chip companies. Founded in June 2017 and led by CEO Peter Nestorov, the company is based in Luzern, Switzerland. The recent seed financing provides resources to make ScaiVision more accessible and attractive to a wider range of customers.

• Annaida Technologies

  Led · Seed · Apr 2020

  Annaida Technologies SA is an EPFL spin-off developing a non-invasive, quantitative embryo screening device that uses microscopic nuclear magnetic resonance (μNMR). The device performs μNMR at a scale the company says is 10-fold better than existing technologies and is designed to work on embryos about one-fifth of a millimeter in size. Like a shrunk MRI, it aims to allow IVF clinics to run on-site analyses within an hour, providing faster, quantitative assessment compared with current microscope examination or invasive biopsies. The company highlights a large fertility market (worth over CHF20 billion) and notes Europe performs over 700,000 IVF cycles yearly, with current successful pregnancies averaging about 35 percent. Annaida says the device could also be applied in biochemical research and pharmacology beyond IVF. Financially, the company closed a milestone-based, oversubscribed CHF1M seed financing to fund safety validation and preclinical trials to define viability biomarkers; Annaida was incorporated in June 2019 and previously received initial investment from HEMEX and an angel investor.

• Resistell AG

  Participated · Seed · Dec 2018

  Resistell has developed a diagnostic device and rapid AST method based on detecting vibrations from living bacterial cells, enabling growth-independent results in hours rather than days. Its R&D device is named Phenotech Research. Clinical validation is underway: the first clinical study for bacteremia and sepsis at the University Hospital in Lausanne is halfway through and shows a large reduction in time to result and around 95% accuracy versus the gold standard. A second multi-site study with three European hospitals has just started. The company intends to use new funds to complete clinical trials and bring Phenotech Research to market. It plans to seek IVDR certification and to commercialize first in the research market while pursuing partnerships with the diagnostic industry, medical centers, and academia. Resistell develops a rapid phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility test that measures movements of living bacteria via nanotechnology and Atomic Force Microscopy to determine antibiotic effectiveness in hours rather than days. The method detects cessation of bacterial motion when an effective antibiotic is applied, enabling correct treatment from day one. The technology was researched at EPFL since 2012 by a team of physicists, physicians and microbiologists led by inventors Prof. Giovanni Dietler and Dr. Sandor Kasas, and the company achieved a proof-of-concept, a 3rd-generation prototype and successful tests on samples from University Hospital in Lausanne (CHUV). A European patent for the device and method was granted in summer 2018, and Resistell was incorporated in April 2018 in Basel; it is moving to new premises in Muttenz. The company aims to become the gold standard in phenotypic antibiotic susceptibility testing and is testing devices in a dedicated AFM laboratory at CHUV with Prof. Gilbert Greub as Chief Scientific Advisor. Management and board additions include CEO Danuta Cichocka, Derek Brandt and Michal Bartos joining the Board, and the startup has support from Venture Kick.

No current team members are available.