Munich-based Hema.to, a digital medtech company, has secured €3.6M in fresh funding led by LUMO Labs. The round also saw support from Bayern Kapital, several US angel investors, and existing investors including Elaia Partners, Heal Capital and HTGF.
Monika Steger, Managing Director of Bayern Kapital, adds, “The workload and pressure in clinical laboratories are high and for life-threatening diseases such as leukaemia or lymphoma, early and accurate diagnosis can make the difference between negative disease progression and life-saving, early intervention.”
“With Hema.to’s AI-supported analysis platform, the time taken to analyse blood data can be reduced to a fraction of the usual manual time. In this way, the company not only relieves the burden on clinical laboratories and promotes patient well-being, but also addresses a global market with a volume of several billion dollars.”
“We therefore see great potential in Hema.to’s solution – both in Europe, where it is already being used in various laboratories and internationally.”
Bayern Kapital, the VC firm of the Free State of Bavaria, manages €700M and invests up to €25M per company. With over 110 active portfolio companies and 30 years of experience, it is one of the “strongest” investors in the DACH region. Since 1995, it has invested over €500M in 320+ startups.
AI cytometry to advance precision immune medicine
With increasing sample volumes and staff shortages in Europe’s busiest clinical labs, cytometry teams face long processing times and a higher risk of missed diagnoses. Hema.to’s AI-powered cytometry technology reduces analysis time from 20 minutes to one minute, improving leukaemia and lymphoma detection while minimising false negatives.
As a deep tech AI company, Hema.to develops cloud-based clinical-grade software for early and precise diagnosis of blood cancers and immune diseases, supporting personalised treatment based on individual immune profiles.
Founded in 2021 by Dr. Karsten Miermans, Felix Kunzweiler, and Dr. Franz Elsner—later joined by Dr. Aleksandra Mezydlo—Hema.to has expanded into a team of 22 specialists across regulatory, medical, AI, engineering, and commercial domains.
Hema.to’s AI leverages a database of over 600,000 files from 20+ leading centres to support blood cancer diagnosis. Its CE-marked AI models are already in use across European labs and hospitals, with an end-to-end solution undergoing certification.
Beyond Europe, the company collaborates with top US institutes like U Penn and has a distribution partnership in Israel.
Capital utilisation
Hema.to will use the funding to enhance its blood cancer diagnostics, pursue additional European certification, conduct clinical studies, expand into immune disorder diagnostics, and scale commercial operations.
Karsten Miermans, Hema.to’s CEO and co-founder, says, “At Hema.to, we like to say that we want to ‘make your blood speak’. Every 3rd person suffers from a life-altering immune disease at some point in their life.”
“Blood data holds the key to the immune system, but at present life-threatening illnesses like leukaemia or lymphoma, can be overlooked in blood analysis—even when the data that indicates otherwise is right there. Through the AI models on our platform, we pull this data to the surface to get every patient an accurate diagnosis and treatment as early as possible. This is how we save lives.”
Brief about LUMO Labs
Founded in 2016 by Andy Lürling and Sven Bakkes, LUMO Labs invests in impact-driven software and smart hardware startups through its multi-stage LUMO Fund II, which includes a two-year venture builder programme.
It supports startups aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on AI, blockchain, IoT, robotics, drones, and VR/AR. LUMO Labs promotes data ownership, transparency, and technological traceability.
The fund primarily targets startups in Benelux and Germany, with secondary markets in the Nordics, Baltics, and Iberian Peninsula.
Speaking about the investment in Hema.to, Founding Partner Sven Bakkes, says, “Through our investments in emerging technologies in Digital Health and Medtech, we want to improve the quality of life of patients and professionals and relieve the ever-increasing strain on public healthcare.”
“We are very happy to welcome Hema.to into our portfolio. Their AI-powered platform scans raw cytometry files in seconds, detecting more diseases than human analysts can and soon also at earlier stages. For busy clinicians, that means a fraction of the manual analysis time. For patients, it can be the difference between a missed pathology and a life-saving early intervention.”
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