TechBio News: Austria

Austria

Austria (formally the Republic of Austria), a landlocked country in Central Europe lying in the Eastern Alps, is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna. The country occupies an area of 83,879 km2 (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of around 9 million.

• Biologists Gregor Mendel and Konrad Lorenz as well as mathematician Kurt G?del and engineers such as Ferdinand Porsche and Siegfried Marcus were Austrians.
• Austria was ranked 17th in the Global Innovation Index in 2024.
• Even though Austria has a 0.9 health index and a life expectancy of 81 years, the country still faces numerous problems when it comes to health, one example being that 2 in 5 Austrians have a chronic condition. Cancer is a big problem in the country, as about 21,500 people died of this condition in 2019, having lung cancer as the primary cause of cancer deaths, probably linked to several risk factors in the country's population, as it is estimated that 40% of deaths in the country are caused by smoking, dietary risks, alcohol, low physical activity and air pollution.
• One of the most costly health services in the EU is located in Austria.
• Over 3,300 startups have popped up in the country since 2011, employing approximately 31,000 individuals. 2021 was a record year of funding with more than €1.2 billion of investment and 7 deals greater than €50M. Not to mention, it was the year Austria welcomed its first two startups valued at +€1 billion: Speedinvest’s portfolio companies Bitpanda and GoStudent. Although overall funding for the global startup ecosystem has decreased since it peaked in 2021, Austria is still seeing success stories, like Refurbed, which landed a $57M Series C (from Austrian Tech Startups: A Speedinvest Story published on January 18, 2024).

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” By Nicolas Chamfort

TechBio Innovation in Austria

Graph Therapeutics

Graph Therapeutics, a biotech company based in Vienna, just announced (January 9, 2025) the closing of a €3M pre-seed financing round to finance the development of an AI-powered platform to bring the precision medicine paradigm to inflammation and immunology drug discovery (AI-powered drug discovery: Graph Therapeutics raises €3 million to tackle inflammatory diseases).

? Graph Therapeutics (Graph Therapeutics FlexCo, 2024) is improving the lives of patients with immune-mediated diseases through Al-driven precision medicine. They use perturbation modeling from primary patient cell samples combined with multi-omics data to deliver transformative targeted therapies and biomarkers for immune-driven diseases. Led by a team of TechBio veterans, Graph combines ex vivo perturbation modeling, multimodal datasets and advanced ML to identify the most clinically impactful drug targets and develop effective therapies for inflammatory diseases.

Gregory Vladimer, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Graph, previously served as CSO and scientific co-founder of Allcyte, and following its acquisition by Exscientia in 2021 served as Vice President of Translational Research and later led the Multimodal Discovery Lab. Graph's CTO and co-founder, Robert Sehlke, PhD, spearheaded Allcyte's computational platform development before leading Translational Bioinformatics at Exscientia. Several other members of the Graph team have worked together since the Allcyte and Exscientia days, all learning from shared experiences in building successful TechBio partnerships and innovation.

• On June 15, 2021, Exscientia Ltd (UK, 2012) acquired (for €50M) ? AllCyte, a biotech start-up focused on precision medicine and drug development in a patient-centric way using high-content imaging and AI, based in Austria (Exscientia acquires personalised medicine AI pioneer Allcyte). Allcyte’s technology was designed to select the most promising drug candidates for clinical development in the right patient populations to maximize clinical study success rates and patient bene?t. This was achieved by measuring functional anticancer drug activity in viable, primary human patient tissues at the single cell resolution to gain a preview of likely clinical efficacy.

Graph’s round was led by Squareone and Merantix Capital, with participation from NAVEC Investment Management and strategic angel investors such as Mehdi Ghissassi via the Atomico Angel Program.

• ? SquareOne (SquareOne Management GmbH) is a venture capital firm focused on pre-seed and seed investments in B2B technology. The Berlin-based VC, formerly known as Paua Ventures, was founded in 2010 and has a network of leading executives, tech entrepreneurs and investors, in order to build the foundation for large and profitable category leaders in B2B software and deep tech businesses across Europe. So far, it counts companies like Stripe, Pipedrive, Carbon One and Wandelbots as part of its portfolio. They invest into ? Synteny (Synteny Biotechnology Limited) (UK) is building an AI platform to power disease discoveries from immune data. ? Noscendo (Noscendo GmbH) (Germany) is offering the DISQVER? platform for digital pathogen diagnostics via cell-free DNA sequencing, detecting 16,000 microbes & 1,500 pathogens from a single patient sample in approx. 24 hours.
• ? Merantix Capital (Merantix Fund Management GmbH) is a Berlin-based venture capital firm and a unit of ? Merantix (a Germany-based AI research and incubator lab, building ML companies in various fields), basically a group of companies and initiatives driving AI forward in Europe. At Merantix Capital they leverage their platform to attract and foster interactions between ideas, talent, industry and policy. They invest for example in ? Vara (MX Healthcare GmbH) (Germany, 2018) that has trained its AI model on more than 1 million mammograms to detect irregularities and signs of cancer with reliable accuracy. In March 2022, Vara obtained stringent European Medical Device Regulation (MDR) certification. In March 2022, Vara brought AI-driven breast screening to Greece with partner MITERA and in 2023, Vara expanded into India. In 2024, Vara raised $8.9M for breast cancer detection in emerging markets.
• ? NAVEC Investment Management GmbH, founded 2008 in Vienna Austria, is a family-owned investment management boutique which focuses on entrepreneurial direct and fund investments, especially in life science and deep-tech. In addition, the firm also selectively engages in asset management, real estate and alternative asset opportunities.
• ? Atomico (Atomico Investment Holdings Limited) is the founder-built European venture capital firm launched in 2006 by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstr?m. Starting in Europe, the firm’s mission is to further their global progress, with a platform offering unmatched support from the early stage to scale. 130 of Europe’s most ambitious founders have partnered with Atomico, including Aiven, Bird, DeepL, Hinge Health, Jobandtalent, Klarna, Lilium, Pipedrive, Stripe, Supercell and Wellhub. Atomico's team of investors and operational leaders are drawn from some of the most successful technology companies in the world, including Skype, Google, Twitter and Wise.

Austria and TechBio research

? Pfizer collab with Austrian research institute leads to new AI models for drug discovery

A 3-year collaboration between Pfizer and the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (CeMM) has resulted in a new AI-driven drug discovery method that could make it faster and easier to identify small molecules with therapeutic potential. CeMM and Pfizer’s approach specifically involves what’s known as chemical proteomics.

? OeAW and Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation establish new institute for biomedical artificial intelligence in Vienna

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) is further expanding its focus on life sciences by opening an institute for biomedical AI based on a € 150M funding from the German non-profit Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation.

? Owkin, an AI-Biotech Unicorn, Brings Its Cutting-Edge AI to Germany, Austria and Switzerland to Accelerate Research

Partnering with nine hospitals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Owkin will accelerate research across numerous therapeutic areas to understand unique patient biology better

Apex Ventures

? Apex Ventures (Apex Ventures GmbH) is a deep-tech and medical focused venture capital firm in Vienna, Austria with a primary focus at seed and early stages, typically investing around EUR 500k to 1,5M per company at its early stage of growth. They invest in Europe and the US, with their main focus being the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), CEE (Central and Eastern Europe), and the Nordics (Northern Europe and the North Atlantic). They are known for investing in CelerisTx (Celeris Therapeutics Inc) (2021, Graz, Austria).

• ? CelerisTx is exploiting cutting-edge ML to design PICs or Proximity-inducing compounds, which are a novel class of therapeutic modalities able to hijack naturally occurring biological machines (like autophagy, folding via chaperones, lysosomal and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis). CelerisTx’s platform Celeris One has three modules: Xanthos the platform’s design engine, Hephaistos the platform’s synthesis engine and Hades the platform’s biological information engine. In 2022, Celeris Therapeutics announced a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim to develop next-generation targeted protein degraders and with Merck KGaA (ETR: MRK) in the field of early drug discovery for discovering and designing novel small molecule binders and bifunctional degraders.

Apart investing into Celeris Therapeutics and ? CardiaTec Bioscience (a TechBio company in UK leveraging large scale multiomics data to discover novel cardiovascular therapeutics) they also invest into:

• ? ImageBiopsy Lab (IB Lab GmbH, also Known As IBL) (Austria) is an AI platform that enables physicians and healthcare providers to turn large amounts of unstructured data into diagnostic evidence. They have already received approval from the FDA for their fully automated radiological image processing software, IB Lab LAMA, for quantifying limb-length discrepancy and quantitative knee alignment parameters on uni- and bilateral AP full leg radiographs. In 2023, ImageBiopsy Lab launched AI software for scoliosis assessment. And in 2024, ImageBiopsy Lab launched IB Lab FROG: AI-powered Foot Measurements for Orthopedic Insights.

HeartBeatBio

? HeartBeatBio (HeartBeat.bio AG) in Austria is developing a high-throughput human cardiac organoids (Cardioids) screening platform for cardiac drug?discovery, that enables modeling of diseases such as drug-induced and genetic cardiomyopathies?as well as myocardial infarction and fibrosis (cardiotoxicity).

Their automated, highly scalable Cardioid generation, acquisition and quality control system is coupled with AI capabilities enabling drug screening with a complex 3D biology at unprecedented throughput and reproducibility, and at a cost comparable with conventional cell-based in vitro?models. In particular, their predictive high throughput screening platform for cardiotoxicity testing and cardiac drug discovery combines the innovative hardware solutions of their technology partner Molecular Devices (with a 3D cell culture and image analysis lab), for complex 3D heart tissue models, relevant functional assays and high-content read-outs as well as AI-based big data analysis software. Apart Molecular Devices, other partners include Boehringer Ingelheim, A:HeadBio (a CNS therapeutics company) and IMBA Institute of Molecular Biology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. You can join them in this virtual panel discussion to identify ways to overcome common challenges during 3D biology research: "How 3D biology is shaping the future of drug discovery.

The company was recognized once again by EU-Startups as one of the Top 10 Austrian Startups to Watch in 2025! ??

Note

According to a report by The Insight Partners, the organoid market is expected to reach $15.01 billion in 2031, a CAGR of 22.1% over 2023’s $3.03 billion. ?? Check out this article from Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News to learn from several R&D experts including Mary Duseau, President of Molecular Devices, HeartBeatBio’s trusted hardware partner, to get a sense of where the organoid market might be headed in the next few years.

Moreover, it was just announced the recent signing of a definitive agreement to acquire HUB Organoids B.V. by Merck KGaA, expanding Merck Life Science diverse portfolio and enhancing HUB′s current capabilities and outreach.

a:head bio

? Based at the Vienna Biocenter, a:head bio (a:head bio AG) is also growing human brain organoids designed to carry out high-throughput screening of drugs targeting the central nervous system (CNS). The company combines cell reprogramming, gene editing, digital biology and 3D culture technology, to create these organoids, which is different from traditional approaches such as using molecular targets and animal models. Then they apply deep AI-driven analysis to uncover complex disease signatures and push disease model sophistication a:head to create unrivaled opportunities in CNS drug discovery. The company’s main focus is on Dravet syndrome, a rare but severe genetic form of epilepsy.

a:head bio AG was one of the featured companies at Bio-Neuroscience in 2024 and has recently secured (October 2024) a pre-Series A funding (a 7 digit EUR financing round).

Delta 4

? Delta 4 (Delta 4 GmbH) in Vienna Austria is a digital drug discovery company that conducts in silico screening before experimental screening.?The company combines in-silico drug discovery and big data analysis with extensive expertise in molecular biology and bioinformatics and a powerful proprietary drug discovery platform. In particular, they offer Hyper-C that extracts biomedical data from numerous sources (such as scientific literature, clinical trials, patents, Omics datasets and dedicated biomedical databases) and organizes these vast and different data sources into a structured form, for modeling disease pathophysiology as well as drug mechanism of action on the molecular level.

Its first therapeutic area is Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a devastating renal disease associated with nephrotic syndrome that carries a high risk of kidney disease progression with high and urgent medical need. On June 19, 2023, Delta 4 announced that has identified clopidogrel, an anti-platelet drug, as a promising therapeutic candidate for FSGS. Clopidogrel demonstrated noteworthy potential in improving key FSGS outcome parameters and reducing histopathological damage, as evidenced in the Adriamycin FSGS mouse model.

In 2022, 4P-Pharma, a French clinical stage biotechnology company, and the Austrian Delta 4 announced the signing of a collaboration agreement to develop first-in-class drug candidates for a rare autoimmune chronic liver disease. In 2023, Delta4 joined the EU funded PerMediK project that provides a multi-disciplinary communication, dissemination platform bringing together a team of pan-European expertise, representing diverse scientific fields (nephrology, several omics areas, bioinformatics, biomarker and drug development), origin (academia, industry, links to policymakers and patient groups) and career levels. In 2024, Delta4 announced its participation in two significant EU Horizon research projects: PICKED (Personalized Medicine in Chronic Kidney Disease) and PROMOTE (Prostate Cancer Omics Mediated Intervention). Horizon Europe is the world’s largest research funding program, focusing on advancing health, biomedical research, data science, and AI/ML.

SpeedInvest

? Speedinvest (SpeedInvest GmbH) born in Austria, is a venture capital fund based in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris and Vienna with more than €1B to invest in pre-Seed, Seed and early-stage tech startups across Europe. Their typical first check is €700K - €1.3M and they aim for double digit ownership. In pre-Seed deals, they invest up to €1M and in Seed up to €3M. They have six dedicated sector-focused investment teams, which are Deep Tech, Fintech, Health & TechBio, Climate Tech & Industrial Tech, Marketplaces & Consumer and SaaS & Infra. They also combine the expertise of investors from across their sector-focused teams to collaboratively fund next-generation Crypto and Emerging Markets startups. They invest in Europe, from Ukraine to Ireland and Estonia to Greece.

Regarding Health & TechBio they invest into:

• ? hi.health (Vienna Austria) (hi.health GmbH) offers people with private health insurance convenient and safe access to health care billing via app or web, by operating at the intersection of digital health, fintech and insurtech. On .
• ? Flinn comply (Vienna Austria) (1BillionLives GmbH) is enabling MedTech companies to automate quality & regulatory processes to launch and operate products 10x more efficient. This means automating the collection, evaluation and reporting of relevant data through smart workflows, integrations, and the support of AI. On September 30, 2024, Vienna-based Flinn.ai secured €10M to automate quality and regulatory medtech compliance.
• ? Diagnosia (acquired by Mediately in 2022) is a mobile and web-based app, which helps doctors and other healthcare professionals make the right medication decision. Additionally, the platform serves as a highly-targeted marketing channel for pharmaceutical companies interested in advertising on the platform. Diagnosia was founded in 2011 by a group of medical doctors, software engineers and entrepreneurs. Over the years the company has established itself as the market leader for clinical drug information software in Austria with more than 5,000 health professionals and over 50 healthcare facilities using their app.
• ? 9am.health (US with Austrian roots) (9amHealth Inc) offers complete cardiometabolic care—a first-of-its-kind, whole-body approach to preventing and treating diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and hypertension. 9amHealth partners with employers, PBMs and healthplans to provide effective health benefits for those living with chronic conditions. Their members receive personalized care plans, prescription delivery, at-home lab tests and unlimited specialist access. On February 28, 2024, 9amHealth Secured $9.5M in New Funds. On September 26, 2024, 9amHealth and Instacart Partnered to Help Employers Expand Access to Healthy Foods, Improve Health Outcomes, and Reduce Care Costs. And on December 11, 2024, 9amHealth Becomes First Virtual Cardiometabolic Care Provider to Achieve CDC's Highest Recognition for Diabetes Prevention Program.
• ? Bloom Diagnostics (2016, Switzerland) (Bloom Diagnostics AG), enables anyone to measure blood markers in a few minutes directly at home or at one of their partner locations. Relevant health information is recorded in the Bloom App and evaluated in connection with the blood sample to produce a personalized health report, containing an individual analysis and actionable information. Understandable. Fast. Fully encrypted, so that nobody can access user data without their consent.
• ? Seqera Labs (Seqera Labs S.L.) is a bioinformatics company developing technologies for data pipelines, founded in 2018 in Barcelona. It is a spin-off of the Centre for Genomic Regulation and its services are largely related to the open-source software Nextflow (for writing data pipeline workflows) that was released in 2013. On
• ? MiLaboratories (MiLaboratories Inc) (Latvia) is the leader in immunome data analysis software with the flagship product MiXCR, a top-notch solution to analyze immunology next generation sequencing data (in vaccine development, CAR-T therapies, antibody discovery and other areas) and is part of the Platforma Bio (a UI-first computational biology for biologists). On April 29, 2024, Miltenyi Biotec, a global pioneer in biotechnology, and MiLaboratories announced a landmark partnership combining MiLaboratories' cutting-edge RNA kit technology for immune sequencing with Miltenyi Biotec's robust production and commercialization capabilities. On October 10, 2024, MiLaboratories Secured Series A, Raising Total Funding to $10 Million to Revolutionize the World of Genomic Research.
• ? Orakl Oncology (France) (Orakl Oncology SAS) partners with the oncology industry to meet the challenge of personalized medicine. They match their tumor models with detailed clinical and omics data and this provides the necessary context to interpret biological results. Then they gather unique insights by mining multi-modal experimental data and combining it with deep patient data (AI powered analysis). In December 2024, Paris-based Orakl Oncology raises €11 million to launch AI-powered drug development tools.
• Apart backing MiLaboratories, Rivia (Rivia Health Inc), a Swiss startup specializing in AI-driven analytics and clinical trial data infrastructure, secured in 2024 a €3M seed funding round led by the Austrian Speedinvest (Zurich-based Rivia raises €3 million to address the critical inefficiencies in the current clinical trial process). ? Rivia offers a real-time, integrated view of data to improve the evaluation of new treatments and trial conduct with its Integrated Clinical Trial Intelligence Platform.

Sarcura

? Sarcura (Klosterneuburg, Austria) (Sarcura GmbH) is developing a groundbreaking device platform for autonomous and miniaturized cell therapy production, significantly increasing capacity and reducing costs. It specializes in cell therapy manufacturing and by utilizing AI/ML aims to improve automation, while through semiconductor technology, it integrates electronic and photonic structures on silicon substrates.

Since only 3% of patients that are eligible for cell therapy receive the treatment, Sarcura’s mission is to improve accessibility by scaling up production of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T therapies, with its closed automated system that aims to cut down on operating and infrastructure time and cost. In March 2024, Sarcura secured a €1.7 M grant from FFG. On July 8, 2024, Sarcura Teamed with imec for On-Chip Blood Cell Detection | BioScan | Jul/Aug 2024.

Ares Genetics

? Ares Genetics (Vienna, Austria) (Ares Genetics GmbH) (Nasdaq: OPGN), an OpGen Group Company, is developing DNA-based infectious disease services and solutions for drug response prediction to improve the way antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections are diagnosed, and prevented or treated. Their innovative AI-powered and ML driven approach leverages the extensive, curated database ARESdb to comprehensively detect and determine the genetic profile of pathogens. Unlike conventional molecular assays, Ares Genetics solutions not only detect AMR markers but shed light on prevalence and diagnostic performance for these markers and predict how pathogens will respond to therapy.

On January 26, 2023, OpGen subsidiary Ares Genetics announced granting of key patent in China. On June 26, 2023, OpGen Subsidiary Ares Genetics Successfully Maintains Key Patent under Opposition in Europe. On August 7, 2023, OpGen’s Subsidiary Ares Genetics Released New Features to its AREScloud Offering.

On April 29, 2024, OpGen, Inc announced that it entered into an agreement to sell its commercial customer contracts and installed base of Unyvero systems to Camtech Pte Ltd, a Singaporean family office for $218,000 (OpGen Provides Update on Business Operations and Strategic Opportunities). The transaction follows Camtech’s prior acquisition of all of Curetis GmhH’s, the company’s subsidiary, Unyvero assets, rights and businesses, as part of Curetis’ insolvency proceedings. In addition, the company’s subsidiary, Ares Genetics GmbH, sold all of its assets, including the ARESdb database and intellectual property portfolio to bioMerieux S.A., as part of Ares Genetics’ insolvency proceedings. Since the sales of both Curetis and Ares Genetics’ assets occurred as part of their insolvency proceedings, OpGen did not participate or have any involvement in such transactions.

Until Next Time,