What does your genetic data tell about you? Berlin’s Nostos Genomics raises €5 million to speed up disease diagnosis

Berlin-based AI driven genetic analysis platform Nostos Genomics has raised a €5 million seed funding from 42CAP, Frontline Ventures, Amino Collective and Entrepreneur First. Other investors in the round included Konstantin Mehl (Kaia Health), Robert Fenton (Qualio), and international backers such as Mark Evans (Kindred Capital) and Acequia Capital.

The startup will use the capital to roll out its pioneering genetic disease identification technology to new European markets and the U.S., as well as expand its development team and launch a series of studies.

More than 400 million people worldwide live with genetic diseases such as epilepsy, musculoskeletal disorders and autism, which is about 5% of the world's population. However, only 30% of those who undergo genetic testing are diagnosed and then able to receive medical care tailored to their needs.

This is because currently, genetic testing is a labour intensive and time-consuming process making it untenable as a routine diagnostic tool.

Founded in 2018 by David Gorgan (CEO) and Dr Rocío Acuña Hidalgo (CTO), the startup aims to change this equation. Its artificial intelligence solution ‘AION’ is able to identify gene variants responsible for more than 10,000 diseases. As a result, diagnosis time is cut from on average 12 hours to within two minutes. In addition to significantly cutting costs and improving accessibility for testing, its fully automated solution increases the process accuracy and reduces the chance of misdiagnosis.

Dr Rocío Acuña Hidalgo, co-founder and CTO at Nostos Genomics, said: “We wanted to find a way to help people with genetic diseases by enabling laboratories to significantly cut the time and labour associated with genetic testing to make it available to everyone.  Our platform dramatically cuts the cost of genetic testing while also improving diagnostic accuracy. With this seed round we will be able to quickly expand our team, enter a series of new markets including the US and conduct more studies to further develop our platform.”

The company’s CE-IVD certified procedure has already been launched Europe-wide, patent proceedings for Nostos technology are pending in the U.S. Currently, data from Genomics England is being used for a large-scale validation study.

Another genomic testing startup SeqOne Genomics raised funding last week.