Munich/ Hamburg — hema.to has set itself the task of auto­ma­ting and fully objec­ti­fy­ing the clini­cal analy­sis of blood data — so-called cyto­me­try — to enable perso­na­li­zed treat­ment for each person’s indi­vi­dual immune system. Elaia Part­ners, Heal Capi­tal and High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) support the mission of hema.to with a seed finan­cing round of 3.6 million euros. hema.to will use the funding to scale its AI decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers in Euro­pean labo­ra­to­ries and provide an initial demons­tra­tion of signi­fi­cant impro­ve­ment in diagno­stic quality.

In the diagno­sis of blood cancers and other immune dise­a­ses by cyto­me­try, specia­li­zed analysts and physi­ci­ans today have to evaluate abstract, high-dimen­­sio­nal point clouds based on their expe­ri­ence and trai­ning. This takes a lot of valuable time (between a few minu­tes and hours per sample, about 20 minu­tes on average), which is a problem given the enorm­ous and incre­asing shortage of quali­fied labo­ra­tory person­nel. Aside from this incre­asing pres­sure on lab staff:inside, this process is noto­riously subjec­tive, with indi­vi­dual staff analy­ses typi­cally diffe­ring by 30%.hema.to aims to drama­ti­cally improve this process with its state-of-the-art, cloud-based machine lear­ning plat­form, helping labs manage their casel­oads, helping lab staff cope with incre­asing demand, provi­ding an objec­tive second opinion to any sick person, and provi­ding new insights to physi­ci­ans to tailor treat­ment to pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.

On a mission to help labo­ra­to­ries world­wide with their clini­cal cyto­me­try workflows

“Europe’s largest leuk­emia lab had an urgent need to acce­le­rate its inter­nal analy­sis work­flows and worked with us to deve­lop the world’s first AI proto­type. After the successful demons­tra­tion of AI-assis­­ted clini­cal cyto­me­try, we found that all labo­ra­to­ries shared the same manual work­flows and pain points. We foun­ded hema.to two years ago to support labo­ra­to­ries world­wide in their clini­cal cyto­me­try work­flows,” said Kars­ten Mier­mans, co-foun­­der and CEO of hema.to .

Based on a large and growing data­base of cyto­me­try data from multi­ple sources, hema.to has deve­lo­ped algo­rithms that can predict biomar­kers for dise­ase directly from raw blood meter data. This pres­ents a previously unsol­ved chall­enge, as the lack of stan­dar­di­zed measu­re­ment proto­cols leads to complex data varia­ti­ons that prevent auto­ma­tion. hema.to specia­li­zes in combi­ning data from multi­ple sources to iden­tify predic­tive biomar­kers for dise­ase. The team has alre­ady used this tech­no­logy in clini­cal routine for decis­ion support in two labo­ra­to­ries — the Insti­tute of Hema­topa­tho­logy in Hamburg and the Result Labo­ra­tory Dord­recht — and now plans to increase the number of user:s and supported dise­ase patterns as well as to further improve the quality of the AI models.

hema.to is based in Munich, Germany, and is led by a team of data science experts who have worked closely toge­ther for years before hema.to was foun­ded. Since its incep­tion about two years ago, they have made their product CE-IVD compli­ant, conduc­ted a clini­cal trial with four centers, and intro­du­ced the product into clini­cal prac­tice in two labo­ra­to­ries. With the second round of funding now raised, the team will be signi­fi­cantly expan­ded, with a focus on AI and soft­ware engi­neers for product deve­lo­p­ment, but also immu­no­logy and cyto­me­try specia­lists, busi­ness deve­lo­p­ment and partnerships.

“The foun­ding team, consis­ting of three former entre­pre­neurs of the same company with three PhD profiles, convin­ced us and is now in the scaling phase. I am deligh­ted that hema.to is Elaia’s first invest­ment in Germany,” says Anne-Sophie Carrese, Mana­ging Part­ner at Elaia Part­ners, photo.

About hema.to

hema.to is an easy-to-use clini­cal decis­ion support soft­ware for blood cancers based on cyto­me­try data and using AI. hema.to acce­le­ra­tes and impro­ves the diagno­stic work­flow and thus helps both diagno­sti­ci­ans and pati­ents. hema.to is CE-IVD and FDA-regis­­te­red and is alre­ady routi­nely used by leading hema­to­logy labo­ra­to­ries. Foun­ded in 2021, hema.to’s mission is to fully objec­tify clini­cal analy­sis of cyto­me­try data so physi­ci­ans can tailor treat­ment to their pati­ents’ indi­vi­dual immune systems.vwww.hema.to

About Elaia Partners

Elaia is a top-tier Euro­pean VC firm with a strong tech­no­logy DNA. We support tech disrup­t­ors with global ambi­ti­ons from early stage to growth. Over the past 20 years, we have been commit­ted to combi­ning high perfor­mance with values.
We are proud to be an active part­ner of over 100 start­ups, inclu­ding success stories such as Criteo (Nasdaq), Orches­tra Networks (acqui­red by Tibco), Volterra (acqui­red by F5), Mirakl (valued at $3.5 billion in Series E), and Shift Tech­no­logy (valued at over $1 billion in Series D). www.elaia.com

About Heal Capital

Heal Capi­tal is a Euro­pean venture capi­tal firm that invests in early and growth-stage tech­­no­­logy-based health­care compa­nies. The 100 million euro fund was initia­ted and finan­ced by leading private health insu­r­ers to actively drive inno­va­tion in health­care. www.healcapital.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed inves­tor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finan­ces tech­no­logy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has supported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 billion euros under manage­ment. The team of expe­ri­en­ced invest­ment mana­gers and start-up experts supports the young compa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neu­rial spirit and passion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of digi­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life scien­ces, chemis­try and rela­ted busi­ness areas. More than €4.5 billion in capi­tal has been inves­ted in the HTGF port­fo­lio by exter­nal inves­tors in more than 2,000 follow-on finan­cing rounds to date. In addi­tion, the fund has alre­ady successfully sold shares in more than 160 companies.
Fund inves­tors in the public-private part­ner­ship include the German Fede­ral Minis­try for Econo­mic Affairs and Climate Protec­tion, KfW Capi­tal, and 45 compa­nies from a wide range of industries.