Addressing foundational bottlenecks in drug discovery, Cambridge spin-out lands £2.14 million

University of Cambridge spin-out company Semarion has raised a £2.14 million seed funding. The round was led by Parkwalk Advisors, with the participation of University of Cambridge Seed Funds, Martlet Capital, and angel investors.

The funding will support the commercial development of the startup’s SemaCyte cell assaying platform and enable further expansion of the team. Semarion will recruit scientists and engineers, and develop additional research partnerships with biopharma partners for bespoke solutions to cell screening challenges. 

The Cavendish Laboratory startup which combines materials engineering and cell biology to tackle unmet drug screening needs was founded in 2018 by Jeroen Verheyen (CEO), Tarun Vemulkar (CTO), and Professor Russell Cowburn.

Jeroen Verheyen, co-founder and CEO, Semarion, said: “This is a crucial step towards the commercialisation of our SemaCyte cell assaying platform. We aim to work closely with biopharma partners to address their unmet cell screening needs.”

Previously, it has received pre-seed funding and business support from Start Codon, a UK venture builder and investor, who supported the transition of the company out of the university.