Spanish medical diagnostics company deepull has closed an oversubscribed Series C financing round, securing €50m ($56.8m).
The funds are earmarked for the final stages of clinical validation and to accelerate the regulatory approval process of its UllCORE diagnostic system for pathogen detection.
Columbus Venture Partners, Mérieux Equity Partners and Panakès Partners jointly led the funding round.
It also saw contributions from current investors such as Asabys Partners, We Venture Capital, Innvierte-CDTI, UI Investissement, Aliath Bioventures, Kurma Partners, and Axis-ICO.
deepull noted that the fully automated walkaway system leverages molecular techniques for extracting and identifying microbial deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) directly from blood.
The multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test is designed to address the need for sepsis diagnosis, delivering outcomes in approximately one hour and covering 95% of pathogens causing sepsis, including fungi, bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes.
It is designed to run on the deepull UllCORE analyser, which offers sample-to-result automation suitable for any hospital clinical lab.
The company stated that initial outcomes from the test using samples collected prospectively from individuals with sepsis indicate high concordance with positive results from blood cultures.
The outcomes also show identification of over double the number of clinically significant pathogens compared to blood culture.
In December 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted breakthrough device designation to the UllCORE bloodstream infection (BSI) test.
deepull CEO Jordi Carrera said: "This financing marks a critical step forward for deepull as we move towards completing the clinical studies of our diagnostic system. "With this support, we are poised to deliver a transformative diagnostic solution to healthcare providers and patients worldwide."
Established in 2020 by STAT-Dx’s founders, deepull develops culture-free diagnostic solutions for acute infections and sepsis.
