SAN DIEGO– Cardea Bio, Inc., a Tech+Bio company integrating molecular biology with semiconductors via Graphene-based biology-gated Transistors, announced today a $6.5M series A extension that brings the A round total above $20M. The new capital infusion is led by the life sciences and biotechnology focused investor 3E Bioventures Capital and joined by existing investors. Proceeds from the financing will be used to further develop Cardea’s proprietary Transistor platform, in order to significantly expand mass-manufacturing and further grow Cardea’s number of commercial partnerships.
Cardea’s proprietary technology enables ultra-sensitive and direct detection of molecular analytes without requiring normal sample preparations and amplification steps such as PCR or protein labeling. The technology holds the potential for a paradigm shift as it can be developed to perform use case specific multi-omics analysis, such as measuring disease specific nucleic acids, proteins and small molecules analytes all measured in the same sample at the same time. An additional new perspective is that it can measure molecular analyte signals over time, allowing the user—or a Machine Learning algorithm—to interact with the biology while seeing the measurement results LIVE on the screen and learning the molecular signals interdependencies.
“We have seen many life science and diagnostics companies over the years, and Cardea’s amplification and label-free multi-omics detection really stands out and holds the potential to fundamentally disrupt the traditional ways of doing diagnostics and other life science markets,” said Dr. Karen Liu, Founding Partner of 3E Bioventures.
Michael Heltzen, CEO of Cardea, added, “We believe the opportunity of near real-time digital insight to molecular multi-omics is massive and represents a paradigm shift away from the old ways and bottlenecks. With a world class team specializing in multi-disciplinary solutions, and after seven years of hard work our graphene-based Cardean transistors and analysis infrastructure is finally ready for product implementation.”
Cardea’s Innovation Partnership Program enables new products and business opportunities via “Powered by Cardea” development partnerships. Together, with these select partners, new applications, instruments and devices are co-developed for the partner’s specific markets for them to gain new competitive advantages and grow their market share.
“2020 was a very productive year in spite of COVID,” said Rob Lozuk, Chief Business Officer of Cardea. “We have successfully entered into partnerships and development programs with some of the largest and most innovative market leaders in healthcare, agriculture and other industries. Over the next months and years, we will together develop many new and valuable products that will be very disruptive and impactful in their respective markets.“
