NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – UgenTec announced today that it has raised $9.3 million in a Series A funding round.
The firm said that it will use the funding to consolidate its position in clinical diagnostics, establish a US office, and enter new diagnostic markets.
"With this financing round, we will consolidate our leading position in clinical diagnostics, set up an office in the United States, and expand into the food safety and quality, agriculture, and animal health [markets]," UgenTec CEO Steven Verhoeven said in a statement.
The Series A round was financed by investment firm LRM, existing shareholders, and UgenTec management. Existing investors include Medhold NV co-CEO Annie Vereecken, Biocartis CEO Herman Verrelst, IMEC, Gemma Frisius Fund, and KU Leuven, UgenTec said.
UgenTec's FastFinder platform uses artificial intelligence to reduce workload for lab technicians and improve reliability of diagnostic test results. In addition, the Fastfinder software cuts down on hands-on time and speeds up test analysis, the firm noted.
"Over the last several years, the diagnostic industry has made significant leaps in the development of laboratory robotics, better chemistry, and reagents to innovate the sector," UgenTec CCO Tom Martens said. "There are still considerable gaps, however, in correspondingly advanced software that enables this hardware to create productivity gains ... [which] are key to the traction Fast Finder is already receiving."
This funding round follows UgenTec's recent announcement in January that it partnered with MDxHealth to develop artificially intelligent software to support the interpretation of results from MDxHealth's ConfirmMDx and SelectMDx prostate cancer tests. And in December, UgenTec announced that it had expanded an ongoing collaboration with Fast Track Diagnostics to include artificially intelligent PCR interpretation software.