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Microfluidics and Microtechnology Solutions
Finnish Organ-On-Chip startup Finnadvance
raises a €1.2 million seed funding round
to expand to foreign markets
8.4.2022
Today, Finnish Organ-On-Chip startup Finnadvance announced that they’ve secured a €1.2 million seed financing round led by Finnish investor Athensmed. Several existing investors, such as deep tech VC Voima Ventures and early-stage VC Icebreaker, are participating in the funding round. In addition, the funding also includes a new investor: Takoa Invest.
Finnadvance is a biotechnology start-up from Oulu, Finland. The 3 year old company develops platforms which recreate tissue models with microfluidic flow patterning and hydrogel coatings. These models simulate tissue and organ function, mechanics and physiological response, simulating human organs in miniature.
"Our technology allows for more human-like preclinical drug testing, fast repurposing of old drugs and, in the long term, development of personalized therapies and medicines,” states Finnadvance’s CEO Prateek Singh.
The €1.2 million funding round will greatly help the company in expanding their operations to foreign markets. With commercial activities in South Korea and Europe, Finnadvance is now heading to the US market. The company has received numerous EU and National funded grants to accelerate product research and development, and are now rapidly scaling their team.
“Finnadvance's industry ready tissue modeling platform accelerates scientific and commercial drug research and brings remarkable savings in both cost and time. Prateek and his team have done an amazing job to bring this technology from an idea to a product. The IPR is also truly impressive”, explains Kustaa Piha, the CEO of Athensmed.
Finnadvance Receives Funding from the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment
The project develops tissue-specific cell culture platforms for clinical research. Today one conventional platform is used for all tissue modeling. It will be studied how different cell types respond to physiological environments and mechanical stress and will provide a platform that can be used to model the function of different tissues more reliable way than current platforms do.
The need for the platform has already been confirmed by several academic research collaborators. Now the goal is to develop a new product line for the pharmaceutical industry.
Project duration: 07.12.2020 - 31.12.2021
More information:
Finnadvance Oy
CEO Prateek Singh
+358 406537049
science @finnadvance.com
Finnadvance's CEO is a finalist for the Young Researcher Entrepreneur Award 2020
February 10, 2021
Finnadvance’s CEO Prateek Singh has been named as one of the four finalists for the Young Researcher Entrepreneur Award 2020 by Kaute Foundation. The award is granted annually to an entrepreneur who has created a new research-based business. The winner of the award will be published in the end of February 2021.
Prateek founded Finnadvance with a vision to make drug discovery more transparent and predictable. With a background in engineering and biochemistry, he is building the team for developing platform technologies for in-vitro development of drugs and therapies. Finnadvance team has grown to 15 people in under 2 years and is now scaling the platform to accelerate drug development processes while simultaneously reducing the animal use for the same.
Read Prateek’s interview here: https://tutkijayrittaja.fi/en/finnadvance/
Finnadvance Technical demonstration video released
June 1, 2020
What do we do at Finnadvance? We offer you a tour into our laboratory and show a sneak peek of our technology
Finnadvance selected to the Future health and wellbeing growth program
April 29, 2020
Finnadvance has been selected to the Future health and wellbeing growth program by Kasvu Open. We are looking forward to the sparring and new ideas!
Finnadvance completes 550k€ seed round led by Voima Ventures and Finnish biotech business angels
April 29, 2020
Oulu, Finland. Finnadvance, a Finnish biotech startup from Oulu Finland announces today it has closed a seed round of 550k€ led by deep tech fund Voima Ventures and Finnish biotech business angels Leena Niemistö and Sauli Törmälä. Company’s earlier investor is Icebreaker VC seed fund.
Finnadvance manufactures multi-channel 3-D microfluidic organ-on-a-chips that simulate the activities, mechanics and physiological response of entire organs and organ systems. In short, the company simulates the human body’s physiology on a microfluidic device, where small tissue and organ fragments are grown for molecule and drug testing. The technology allows more human-like pre-clinical drug testing, fast repurposing of old drugs and in the long term development of personalized therapies and medicines.
Finnadvance’s vision is that organ-on-chips will significantly speed the development of new drugs, as well as abolish the need for animals in drug development and toxin testing. Established in 2018 December, Finnadvance has already established joint research and collaboration with partners and customers such as the Finnish Red Cross Blood Service, Orion Pharma, University of Helsinki, University of Eastern Finland, Tampere University, VTT Oulu, UPM Biomedicals, the Biobank of Eastern Finland and SMEs, Kaivogen, Timegate Instruments, Bionavis, and Afekta.
“Our goal at Finnadvance is to create a body-on-a-chip which could be used to test medications and treatments before they are administered to a patient. This way performance of different medications and treatments could be tested in advance and the patient would receive only the best, most suitable medication for them. Selecting the right medication with organ- or body-on-chips both speeds up the process substantially and greatly improves the safety as well as patient outcomes. Futuristic, but this can be a reality in 3-5 years! ” says Prateek, the CEO of Finnadvance.
“We at Voima Ventures are eager to see how a company like Finnadvance can change the way the drug testing is perceived and executed. There is a tremendous effect of such innovations on one person’s life and later nations. Welcome to Voima ventures family, Finnadvance team“, says Inka Mero, Managing Partner of Voima Ventures.
About Finnadvance
Finnadvance is a microtechnology and 3D biology solution company based in Oulu, Finland. Finnadvance is developing microfluidic organ-on-chips for pharmaceutical drug research and development.
About Voima Ventures
Voima Ventures is a €40M deep tech fund that invests purely in startups with deep tech and scientific backgrounds. Voima Ventures’ mission is to solve major global problems by combining science, entrepreneurship, and capital. Industry domains include bio and new materials, medical technologies and life sciences, imaging and optics, IoT and electronics, robotics, software & ICT and AI. In addition, Voima Ventures is managing a portfolio of VTT Ventures with 20 prominent deep tech companies including Solar Foods, Paptic, and Dispelix. Cornerstone investors are VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and European Investment Fund (EIF), backed by Finnish private and institutional investors.
Finnadvance part of Finland’s efforts on nanobiotechnology derived therapeutics
February 29, 2020
Finnadvance has joined a new research consortium of Finnish pharmaceutical technology and academic research organisations to develop new organ-on-chip platforms for treatment and early diagnostics of central nervous system degenerative diseases and cancer. The consortium’s research will leverage blood-derived extracellular vesicles for potential drug delivery vehicles and biomarkers.
https://www.bloodservice.fi/news/new-pharmaceutical-research-utilising-nanobiotechnology-in-finland
Finnadvance presents at WearableTechnologies 2020
January 27 - 28, 2020
Finnadvance presented it's mictotechnology solutions for on-body applications at the 36th WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2020 EUROPE in Munich, Germany. Wearable Technologies EUROPE hosted an extensive exhibition area to feature all topics along the WT | Wearable Technologies value chain and companies from all wearable market segments offering a unique networking experience.
Finnadvance presents at WearableTechnologies 2020
January 27 - 28, 2020
Finnadvance presented it's mictotechnology solutions for on-body applications at the 36th WT | Wearable Technologies Conference 2020 EUROPE in Munich, Germany. Wearable Technologies EUROPE hosted an extensive exhibition area to feature all topics along the WT | Wearable Technologies value chain and companies from all wearable market segments offering a unique networking experience.
Finnadvance pitches in sauna!
November 26, 2019
Finnadvance’s COO Jari Moilanen won the first Sauna Pitching event organized by Tampere Entrepreneurship Society. This fun pitching event was live-streamed from a hot sauna with creative dresscode. Thanks to the organizers for a great event; pitching can be fun and easygoing too!
https://fi.linkedin.com/company/tamperees