Scailyte AG, a Swiss startup in the emerging and rapidly growing field of single-cell technologies, raised CHF 2.75M in seed funding and gained Swisscom Ventures as a strategic investor. Zürcher Kantonalbank also joined the financing round, alongside the existing shareholders, thus reaffirming their trust in the competence and vision of Scailyte’s team. Dominique Megret, Head of Swisscom Ventures, will join the Board of Directors of Scailyte, along with Pascal Winnen, CEO of Hemex AG.
Scailyte develops artificial intelligence (AI) based software for best-in-class analysis of complex single-cell data to enhance biomedical research, pharmaceutical discovery and precision diagnostics. The software for biomedical research, commercialized under the brand ScaiVision, will be launched in the beginning of 2019. Scailyte also offers biomarker discovery services to companies aiming to complement and enrich their analysis by adding the single-cell perspective.
The raised capital will be used to enhance the market entry and to speed up further development of ScaiVision, allowing it to be more accessible and attractive to a wider range of customers.
There is a huge potential in the single-cell technologies. Renowned magazine The Scientist has just published this year’s Top 10 Innovations – a ranking done by a panel of Key Opinion Leaders from the life sciences, which features four technologies for single-cell analysis. According to The Scientist, the advantage of capturing these reams of biological information on the level of a single-cell is revealing the variety within tissues not detectable in pooled samples. This may allow scientists to more accurately detect disease specifics.
“The future of healthcare is about detecting and understanding valuable information hidden in complex data patterns.” says Peter Nestorov, CEO of Scailyte AG. “With our AI-based software for single-cell data interpretation, we will accelerate biomedical discovery and enable the next generation of precision diagnostics. With the support of strong partners like Swisscom Ventures and Zürcher Kantonalbank, we will grow to become pioneers and leaders in the fast emerging Single-Cell Analysis market, enabling the clinical application of single-cell data. “
Dominique Megret, Head of Swisscom Ventures, who will join the Board of Directors, explained “Swisscom Ventures invests in software applications based on powerful machine learning algorithms. We believe the single-cell analysis technology will bring precision medicine to the next level. We were impressed by Scailyte’s team, who bring together unique skills from both computational biology and Next-Generation Sequencing device markets. “
Also joining Scailyte’s Board of Directors will be Pascal Winnen, CEO of Hemex AG, who commented: ”Hemex has supported the development of several innovative therapies and immediately recognized the potential of Scailyte’s technology to unlock “big data” in order to find more precise, personalized cures and even detect diseases before they manifest clinically in patients. We are proud to join Scailyte at the forefront of AI single-cell data analysis.”
Company descriptions
Swisscom Ventures is the venture capital arm of the Swisscom Group, the leading telecommunications and one of the leading IT companies in Switzerland. Since its inception in 2007, Swisscom has acquired minority stakes in over 50 companies with a strong focus on digital media, IT and telecommunications. Swisscom Ventures offices are located in the innovation hubs of Switzerland (Zurich and Lausanne) and the USA (Silicon Valley). As a strategic investor, they invest in companies that are strategically relevant to the Swisscom business. In return, they offer entrepreneurs access to telecommunications expertise, technical infrastructure and marketing channels – in addition to financial support. For more information: www.swisscom.ch/ventures
Zürcher Kantonalbank is a leading universal bank in the Zurich economic area with Swiss roots and international reach. It is an independent, incorporated public-law institution of the Canton of Zurich and has received top ratings from the rating agencies Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch (AAA/Aaa). With more than 5,000 employees, Zürcher Kantonalbank offers its clients a comprehensive range of products and services. The bank’s core activities include financing businesses, asset and wealth management, trading, capital market transactions, deposits, payment transactions and the card business. Zürcher Kantonalbank provides clients and distribution partners with a comprehensive range of investment and retirement provision products and services. More at: https://www.zkb.ch/
Hemex AG supports start-ups as well as established medical device, biotech and pharmaceutical companies with a wide range of expertise, either in-house or via their network of dedicated partners and affiliates. Hemex’ experts have several decades of combined experience in the pharmaceutical and medical technology industry with pivotal contributions to the development and approval of innovative products. Hemex supports companies in their interactions with the investor community and also offers interesting collaboration programs, including public and private seed funding. More at https://hemex.eu/
Scailyte AG was founded in Luzern, Switzerland in July 2017. Scailyte is officially recognized as ETH Zurich spin-off. The company has been accepted in the Innosuisse coaching program (Swiss Innovation Agency) and won the first place at MassChallenge Switzerland program. The team comprises of 9 members with a diverse expertise, ranging from Cell biology, Artificial Intelligence, Software development, Finance, Marketing and Sales.
ScaiVision software will be commercialized as a closed-source, cloud-based software for biomedical research and pharmaceutical discovery in Q1-2019. The software will offer best-in-class performance for supervised pattern recognition analysis of single-cell data. The performance and clinically-relevant application of the core deep learning algorithm of the software has been demonstrated in a scientific publication by Prof. Claassen, one of the founders of the Company. Scailyte has conducted various Proof-of-Concepts in 2018, one of which with a leading clinical research center in Berlin. The company is currently in negotiations with leading blue-chip companies for biomarker discovery as a service and has started its first clinical study. For more information: www.scailyte.com