Prime Highlights:
- InvenireX has secured £2 million in Seed funding to expand and commercialise its early-detection DNA technology.
- The company’s platform can detect disease markers far earlier than current diagnostic methods.
Key Facts:
- In pilot tests, the technology showed 200× greater sensitivity than qPCR and 60× improvement over digital PCR.
- The system also cuts testing time and cost by half, providing results in minutes instead of hours or days.
Background:
Newcastle-based biotech startup
has secured £2 million in Seed funding to help launch its DNA-based technology, which can detect diseases much earlier than today’s standard tests.
The funding round was led by DSW Ventures, with contributions from XTX Ventures, Cambridge Technology Capital, several angel investors with deep biotech expertise, and additional support from Innovate UK. The investment will enable InvenireX to expand its team and scale pilot programmes already underway across diagnostics and vaccine manufacturing.
Founded in 2023 through the deep-tech venture builder Conception X, InvenireX is based on the doctoral research of CEO and founder Dr Dan Todd at Newcastle University. Todd’s work centres on solving a long-standing challenge in molecular detection: the loss of vital biological markers during sample preparation, a limitation that has constrained early disease identification for decades.
Instead of using older testing methods like PCR, the company has created programmable DNA nanostructures called “Nanites.” These Nanites capture specific genetic markers inside specially designed microfluidic chips. The system can then detect and measure these markers instantly, reaching levels of sensitivity that current methods cannot match.
Early pilot tests show that the platform is 200 times more sensitive than qPCR and 60 times better than digital PCR, while cutting both testing time and cost by half. The technology can generate quantitative results in minutes, offering new possibilities for early cancer detection, faster infectious disease diagnostics, and real-time quality checks inside vaccine manufacturing lines.
Industry experts have taken notice. Jonathan O’Halloran, founder of QuantuMDx and an angel investor in the company, described the technology as one of the UK’s most exciting scientific developments, placing it alongside breakthroughs such as early genome sequencing and nanopore technologies.
InvenireX has already completed a successful pilot with a diagnostics company, which has committed to purchasing its first instrument. Additional pilots are moving forward with partners in infectious disease and vaccine production. With fresh capital in hand, the company aims to position its platform as a next-generation tool for researchers, clinicians and manufacturers worldwide.
