Venneos raises seed round of 1 million euros

Venneos GmbH is based in Stuttgart and develops a novel imaging system for the analysis of biological cells. A consortium of business angels and family offices, along with the High-Tech Gründerfonds and Max Planck Society invest in the company to develop a market-ready product and prepare the market entry of the first product generation.

Venneos, founded as a spin-off from the Max Planck Society, is developing a silicon-chip-based imaging system for the analysis of biological cells. The system builds upon an innovative measurement approach that allows customers to detect cellular changes which remain invisible with other technologies. The automated parallel analysis of up to several thousand cells makes experiments more objective, reproducible and reliable. In addition, the microscopy-like visualization of the results enables an intuitive interpretation. Thanks to the compact size, the system can easily be integrated into daily lab work.

For the seed round of 1 million euros, the Venneos team acquired funding from a consortium of business angels from Stuttgart and family offices, the High-Tech Gründerfonds and Max Planck Society. “With the support of these financially strong investors, we can work together to establish a new standard for cell analysis”, states David Wehner, managing director and co-founder.

At the moment, the company is cooperating with pilot customers to develop the prototype further. “The projects with pilot customers prove that there is a demand for our products in academia as well as in the pharmaceutical industry”, explains co-founder Jonas Lehmann. For further development, Venneos is currently looking for employees at the intersection of physics, electrical engineering, computer science and biology.

“We are happy, that a strong investor consortium could be put together for this disruptive technology in the area of cell analysis”, says Marco Winzer from High-Tech Gründerfonds. With its investors, the company has established a solid basis for further funding rounds.

Dr. Florian Kirschenhofer, Startup Manager at Max Planck Innovation, says, „We are happy, that Venneos GmbH could win two very experienced investors, the consortium of business angels from Stuttgart and family offices as well as the HTGF. With their support, the promising technology from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry can unfold its full potential.”

About Venneos
Venneos GmbH, a German high-tech startup, was founded in 2014 and is sponsored by the German federal support program EXIST Forschungstransfer. It develops and markets a silicon-chip-based imaging system for the analysis of biological cells. Researchers in areas such as tumor biology, immunology and pharmacology as well as pharma and biotech companies are among its pilot customers. The Venneos team consists of five people and was successful at the WECONOMY competition 2014 and the Science4Life business plan competition 2015.

Contact:
Venneos GmbH
David Wehner
Nobelstr. 15
70569 Stuttgart
+49 711 715302 10
wehner@venneos.com
www.venneos.com

About Max Planck Innovation
Max Planck Innovation is responsible for the technology transfer of the Max Planck Society and, as such, serves as a link between industry and basic research. With its interdisciplinary team it advises and supports scientists in evaluating their inventions, filing patents, and founding companies. Max Planck Innovation offers the industry unique access to the innovations of the Max Planck Institutes, and therefore performs an important task: the transfer of basic research results into products, which contributes to economic and social progress.

Contact:
Max Planck Innovation GmbH
Dr. Florian Kirschenhofer
Startup & Portfolio Manager
Amalienstr. 33
80799 Munich
Phone: +49(0)89 290919-0
kirschenhofer@max-planck-innovation.de
www.max-planck-innovation.de

About High-Tech Gruenderfonds
High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests in young, high potential high-tech start-ups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable start-ups to take an idea through prototyping to market launch. Typically, High-Tech Gruenderfonds invests EUR 500,000 in the seed stage, with the potential for up to a total of EUR 2 million per portfolio company in follow-on financing. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy, the KfW Banking Group, as well as strategic corporate investors, including ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, Lanxess, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gruenderfonds has about EUR 576 million under management in two funds (EUR 272 million HTGF I, EUR 304 million HTGF II).

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Marco Winzer
Schlegelstraße 2
53113 Bonn
Tel: +49 (228) 823 00-100
Fax: +49 (228) 823 000-50
info@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de