Scipio bioscience announces its seed fund raising
A total of €1.2m has been obtained from two European seed funds: Paris, France-based Seventure Partners’ Quadrivium I seed fund and Bonn, Germany-based High-Tech Gründerfonds. These funds will fuel the reinforcement of the R&D team focused on the completion of the first prototype kit, dedicated to single-cell transcriptomic. Read the full press release in pdf here.
Press Release:
Paris, November 14th 2017 – Scipio bioscience, a Paris-based biotechnology company devoted to
providing a novel sample preparation solution for single-cell studies in the form of benchtop kits,
announces today the completion of its initial fundraising. A total of €1.2m has been obtained from two
European seed funds: Paris, France-based Seventure Partners’ Quadrivium I seed fund and Bonn,
Germany-based High-Tech Gründerfonds. These funds will fuel the reinforcement of the R&D team
focused on the completion of the first prototype kit, dedicated to single-cell transcriptomics.
Scipio bioscience exploits a proprietary technology for the preparation of samples for single-cell
profiling based on barcoding in a test tube format. Scipio bioscience’s sample preparation solution for
single-cell-omics is freed of the substantial investment and running costs of existing technologies,
while achieving the flexibility and scalability required in state-of-the-art research. The technology was
developed by Prof Stuart Edelstein, a world-renowned biophysicist, who leads the company as
President, joined by Pierre Walrafen, Ph.D., an experienced biotech manager, as CEO.
“The costs and constraints of available methods for sample preparation have hampered widespread
adoption of single-cell approaches so far”, says Prof Stuart Edelstein. “We overcome these hurdles by
providing a simple kit-based technology, requiring no specific devices, to prepare thousands of cells for
profiling studies in a test tube setup. We believe this will make single-cell RNA-sequencing a routine
laboratory tool, for the benefit of patients and scientists.”
“There is an evident need for accessible single-cell transcriptomics solutions and studies at the singlecell level will represent a major share of the sequencing market”, adds Philippe Tramoy, Director of
Quadrivium 1. “Scipio bioscience’s solution addresses this need, with the potential to both drastically
reduce cost and expand the fields of applications, in both clinical and basic research.”
Scipio bioscience is housed in the iPEPS-ICM incubator of the Brain and Spine Institute (ICM), located
in the celebrated Parisian Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital. The ICM offers cutting-edge core facilities,
including the genomics and bioinformatics platforms. Collaborations are being initiated with ICM
laboratories as well as other leading European research institutions to secure access to samples and
user feedback.
Scipio bioscience plans to expand R&D operations into Germany in 2018.
Philippe Tramoy, Partner at the Quadrivium 1 seed fund at Seventure Partners, Prof Stéphane Le Crom,
head of the Omics network at Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris, France) and Frank Hensel, Ph.D.,
Sr Investment Manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds, serve on the Strategy Committee chaired by Prof
Stuart Edelstein.
