• Ancera

  Participated · Series A · Jun 2016

  Ancera develops a small printer-sized instrument called the Piper and disposable smartphone-sized cartridges plus analytics software to enable on-site, non‑expert testing of food for contaminants. Piper can detect and quantify salmonella in a sample within one to eight hours, versus typical culture-based tests that take 30–50 hours or up to five days. The company’s approach sorts microbes and images intact cells, enabling immediate sequencing to help trace the root cause in a supply chain. Ancera has secured patents, attracted federal grant funding, and won commitments from two major food-industry customers (a chicken and a produce business) to begin using its salmonella testing. The Series A proceeds will be used for hiring, commercial production and distribution of instruments and cartridges, and continued R&D to expand testing to other contaminants such as E. coli. The company has raised $8.9M in this Series A, bringing total capital raised to $12.3M. Ancera develops a portable technology platform for the separation, quantitative detection and identification of minute concentrations of various pathogens from whole blood or other bodily fluids. The platform is based on technology Ancera licenses exclusively from Yale University, which uses magnetic fields to manipulate biologic cells via a ferromagnetic fluid. Ancera says the platform will be useful in food safety testing (for example, detecting E.coli), point-of-care diagnostics and in vitro diagnostics. The company plans to sell the platform initially to research labs and CLIA labs working in pathogen detection. Ancera is based in Branford, Connecticut. The company recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding, with Connecticut Innovations committing $150k and participation from LaunchCapital and other angel investors.

No current team members are available.