Finland’s Proteins.1 Raises €4.7M in Pre-Seed Funding to Develop Protein Detection Tech

The company is attempting to commercialize photonics-based biomolecule detection technology, developed at Finland’s VTT.

Proteins.1, a Finnish startup developing a single-molecule protein detection technology, has raised €4.7 million ($5.5 million) in pre-seed financing.

Lifeline Ventures and Cloudberry Ventures led the round, announced April 16.

“What sets Proteins.1 apart is a fundamentally new sensing approach,” Cloudberry’s Rene Kromhof said in a statement. “Rather than using enzymes that give you one chance to detect a protein, they use light and thin-film transistors to amplify the signal from a single protein until it rises above the noise. That dramatically improves sensitivity, and ultimately, how early disease can be caught.”

The company said it plans to use the funding to expand its engineering and product development teams over the coming years.

Proteins.1 is a spinout from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. Using a physics-based magnetic cycling mechanism, the company’s technology repeatedly reads a captured protein or nucleic acid molecule, accumulating signal clarity without increasing background noise.

The company is the latest to attempt to commercialize photonics-based biomolecule detection technology, following in the footsteps of Pumpkinseed — a Stanford University spinout, Armonica Technologies, and SemiconBio (formerly known as Roswell Biotechnologies.)