A few years back, a couple of Cornell students developed a technology that turns bacterial viruses into "informants" to identify superbugs like MRSA and other toxic bacteria. Those students went on to found GeneWeave Biosciences, which just raised $12 million in a Series A round led by Decheng Capital.
The capital will be used to complete the development, validation and clearance of the initial test for the company's platform, according to Steve Tablak, who became the company's CEO last summer.
The company's vision is to employ bacteriaphages to determine if a patient is infected with MRSA or another type of bacteria. Those phages would send a signal to alert a physician if a person is infected with these troublesome pathogens.
Decheng Capital's Min Cui, who is also joining the company's board of directors, said his firm led the round because it saw "the tremendous application for the technology" in the U.S. and China, "where there is fast-growing demand for innovative molecular diagnostics products."
Other participants in the round were existing investors Claremont Creek Ventures and X/Seed Capital.
- see the GeneWeave release
- get more on the company's tech from this video