Switzerland-based Spiden uses optical and AI-based technology to analyse blood, urine, and other body fluids for the first time non-destructively and in real-time.
Spiden raises funding
In a recent development, Spiden has raised $18M (approx €14.85M) in a fresh round of funding led by Ornament Health, a digital health application developer. With this round, the company has raised a total of $25M (approx €20.6M) in funding, to date.
In addition, the round also saw participation from other investors, including Geberit, a Swiss stock market listed group and leading player in manufacturing and supplying sanitary products; Young Sohn, former Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung, Board member at Arm and seed investor in Zoom Video; angel investor Daniel Gutenberg, known for his early investments in so called “unicorns” such as Facebook, Stone, and Mobileye; Edward Ludwig, former CEO and Chairman of Becton, Dickinson and current Board member of Boston Scientific and CVS Health; Konstantin Othmer, an early engineer at Apple and early investor in Tesla and Ring; Kirill Evstratov, founder of Unlimint, so-called a global fintech company; b-to-v partners; and several other executives from within and outside the medtech industry.
Real-time continuous blood monitoring
Leo Grünstein, founder & CEO of Spiden, says, “How come humanity wants to fly to Mars, yet we still don’t know what the short- and long-term health effects are of the things we eat, the environment we live in, the medication we take, and the way we exercise or sleep? I’ve started Spiden to create a new platform for such real-time feedback, to help us improve and extend our lives.”
Spiden has developed a technology platform to analyse biomarkers and drugs in real-time, and perform on-site spectroscopic measurements of physiological fluids, blood in particular. The company uses optical technologies combined with artificial intelligence (AI) to open up integration and application opportunities.
Leo Grünstein envisions a future where human blood can be continuously measured with an implant for living a healthier and longer lives, detecting diseases earlier, and helping to improve and personalise medical treatments. For instance, Spiden’s optical technology does not break the matter; it analyses it in comparison to traditional chemical lab tests.
Use of the funds
Currently, the Spiden team has analysed multiple biomarkers and is planning to use this capital infusion to further expand its platform’s library of biomarkers and drugs.
Biomarkers are the measures used to perform a clinical assessment such as blood pressure or cholesterol level and are used to monitor and predict health states in individuals so that appropriate therapeutic intervention can be planned.
Ornament Health, which led the investment in this round, is a digital health app that allows its users to upload their blood test results and conveniently analyse and organise them in order to better understand and manage their health.
Ornament’s CEO Snezhana Gurina, said, “The investment in Spiden is inherently strategic for Ornament, as we share our vision for the future, in which snapshot biomarker data will make space for continuous, real-time biomarker data. Spiden is building what we believe is the future of preventative medicine, as its unique data set will help to uncover correlations between lifestyle choices, medication, and longevity. Ornament could be Spiden’s partner for the user interface of its data.”
About Spiden
Founded in 2017 by serial entrepreneur Leo Grünstein, Spiden’s mission is to provide a platform for longevity and preventative medicine by providing real-time biomarkers and drug analysis so that clinicians, patients, as well as healthy individuals can make informed and timely decisions and take the medical treatments accordingly.
The company’s R&D team comprises biophotonics experts, opto-mechanical engineers, data scientists, artificial intelligence experts, and more, working out of its headquarters in Pfäffikon SZ, Switzerland.
Spiden claims to have developed a data generation platform to perform spectroscopic measurements of a wide range of biomarkers and drugs in blood. In the short term, Spiden intends to work with established industry players and create blood monitoring technology that can improve the safety and efficacy of treatments of the critically ill in clinical settings.
