The Venture Codex

Led · Seed · Sep 2022

faCellitate develops an intelligent, ultra-low attachment polymer surface coating platform for plastic and glassware, with an initial commercial product (BIOFLOAT™ 96-well plate) targeting reproducible 3D cell culture. The coating platform supports chemistry-driven surface modification and applications such as cell- and protein-repellent surfaces and biospecific surfaces under the BIOINSTRUCT™ brand. The company was formed at Chemovator (BASF’s internal venture builder) and was spun off at the end of 2021; it is based in Mannheim with labs in Heidelberg. faCellitate reports one product already on the market with positive customer feedback and is rolling out further plate formats and new product lines. Management says the company will leverage cross-selling opportunities and expand its product pipeline over the next 12–24 months. The team is led by co‑founder and CEO Dr. Simon Widmaier.

Led · Series A · Oct 2021

Loop Medical is developing a novel, minimally invasive device that enables collection of clinical‑grade capillary blood compatible with high‑throughput analyzers. The ergonomic, push‑button device is worn on the upper arm and uses patented skin vasodilation and micro‑incision technology to enhance capillary flow while ensuring low hemolysis and low shear stress. It can be administered by a clinician or by a patient, aiming to improve safety, reduce pain, and lower costs. Target end markets include home collection, clinical trials, and liquid biopsy testing, with a combined TAM of $5.2 billion. Proceeds from the recent financing will support U.S. FDA clearance and ramped‑up manufacturing. The company has previously received grants and investment, including $3.6 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Loop Medical is based in EPFL Innovation Park in Lausanne, Switzerland, and was established in 2016. Loop Medical has engineered a painless and easy-to-use blood collection device designed to collect samples large enough for common high-throughput clinical analyzers while improving safety, particularly in low-resource settings. The device is intended for clinical pathology laboratories, clinics, pharmacies, physician offices and at-home patients, and was developed to integrate with existing centralized laboratory infrastructures. Loop is partnered with Cerba HealthCare since 2017 to enable integration into laboratory processes. The company is based at EPFL in Lausanne and was established in 2016. Financially, Loop recently received grant funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support pre-production and clinical validation work. The current funding will be used to finalize development and run the clinical trials required for global registration. Loop positions its technology as a way to simplify access to clinical-grade laboratory results and address global health challenges such as infectious diseases.

Participated · Series A · May 2021

Smart4Diagnostics (S4DX) builds a device called Sample-CheckIn that creates a digital fingerprint of a blood sample and monitors all quality aspects from collection until arrival at the laboratory. The system reports data into the laboratory while the patient is still present, enabling immediate error correction and reducing repeat visits. The company says it was founded out of lab experience to close the preanalytics data gap that can cause slow or incorrect diagnoses. S4DX was formed in 2018 as part of the EIT Health Wild Card programme and has received ongoing support from EIT Health’s Gold Track and Bridgehead initiatives. Co-founders include Dr. Yannick Timo Böge, Julia Flototto, Hans Maria Heÿn and Malte Dancker. The startup recently completed a Series A round to fund its market entry and product roll-out.