Semarion, a Cambridge, UK-based company combining materials engineering and cell biology to tackle unmet drug screening needs, raised GBO£2.14M in Seed funding.
The round was led by Parkwalk Advisors, with participation from University of Cambridge Seed Funds, and Martlet Capital.
The company intends to use the funds to support the commercial development of its SemaCyte® cell assaying platform and further expansion of the team, as they recruit scientists and engineers, and establish additional research partnerships with biopharma partners for bespoke solutions to cell screening challenges.
Co-founded at the Cavendish Laboratory in 2018 by Jeroen Verheyen (CEO), Tarun Vemulkar (CTO), and Professor Russell Cowburn, Semarion is combining materials engineering and cell biology to tackle unmet drug screening needs.
SemaCytes, developed by Semarion, are a novel class of cell carrier materials, created using microchip fabrication technologies, nanomagnetism, and smart materials. These assaying microcarriers are flat and function as ultra-miniaturized, magnetically steerable wells which carry small colonies of adherent cells into suspension to improve cell-based experiments. They enable the controlled movement of cell types which need to stick to a surface, namely those typically used for in vitro drug screening work. By facilitating workflow automation, assay miniaturisation, and cell barcoding, this technology improves the quality and reproducibility of cell screening data while reducing the time and cost to deliver research outputs. SemaCytes integrate with existing workflows and are compatible with various multi-well plate formats, liquid handling tools, and imaging tools such as high-content screening equipment.
FinSMEs
22/02/2022