HEIDELBERG, Germany, January 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Luxendo intends to use funds to drive the uptake of its Single Plane Illumination Microscopes internationally
Luxendo, a privately held start-up spun out of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and developing its proprietary Single Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM) technology for biomedical research, announces today that the total capital raised in the Series A is €8 million. This follows a funding extension which was led by Life Science Partners (LSP), Amsterdam, EMBL Ventures, Heidelberg and EMBL Enterprise Management Technology Transfer GmbH (EMBLEM).
Luxendo will use these funds to drive the international sales of its Single Plane Illumination Microscopes by expanding its international sales and marketing team. Luxendo also intends to invest in the production capacity needed to support its growth.
Luxendo launched two different microscopes Mu-VI- and In-Vi- SPIM in 2016. Both microscopes are based on the SPIM technology. This technology allows scientists to observe living organisms for extended periods of time without them being adversely impacted by photo-toxicity. Luxendo’s microscopes are able to avoid sample phot-toxicity by just illuminating sequentially a stack of small slices of the organism that is actively being viewed.
The MuVi-SPIM microscope, equipped with two of the latest sCMOS technology cameras provides superfast 3D imaging (up to 140 fps, 512x2000 px) without the need of sample rotation. The InVi-SPIM microscope, equipped with an inverted optical setup, allows extremely gentle specimen handling and is therefore dedicated to cell culture and early embryonic development imaging.
Luxendo plans to introduce a new instrument for quantitative fluorescence imaging in 2017. This novel instrument is in its final development phase.
Andreas Pfuhl, CEO of Luxendo commented: “We are extremely happy that interest from potential academic and industrial customers around the world for testing our MuVi- and InVi- SPIMs is greatly exceeding our expectations. We are delighted that this high level of interest has persuaded our existing investors to commit the additional funds we need to expand Luxendo sales, marketing and service capabilities. By strengthening our organization we will be able to drive the sales of our microscopes and to ensure that we deliver first class customer support.”
“Today more than 2.500 cell biology labs around the globe use confocal microscopes to conduct their research, however there is a rapidly growing interest in microscopes that use SPIM technology by scientists in both academia and industry” comments Stefan Herr, Managing Director at EMBL Ventures. “Luxendo’s SPIM technology means that it is well placed to tap this rapidly emerging market. We are confident that Andreas and his team will ensure that Luxendo is able to gain a significant share of this market due to the clear benefits the Company’s products deliver.”
“SPIM microscopy allows researchers to see things they couldn’t dream of before, such as imaging the entire embryonic development of an organism with subcellular resolution,” says Joachim Rothe, Managing Partner at LSP, “We are convinced that Luxendo will become the leading supplier of this exciting technology to biomedical research labs around the globe.”
“We are pleased that with Luxendo, the most recent SPIM technologies company to come out of EMBL is focused on making its products available to the wider scientific community as rapidly as possible. This increased Series A financing will help it speed-up this process” commented Jürgen Bauer, Deputy Managing Director of EMBLEM.
Luxendo’s proprietary SPIM technology is a fluorescence microscopy technique combined with a high optical resolution. Only a thin slice (one to few micrometers) of the fluorescent sample is illuminated, and therefore highly reduces the photodamage and stress induced on a living sample that could occur with conventional laser scanning confocal microscopes.
