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Biotech company Senzo has raised a $2 million round at a pre-funding valuation of $20 million to further expand its options for next-generation assays. “Side flow,” in this case, is the same type of test you see in home pregnancy or covid-19 tests.
The company is developing a product it calls Amplified Lateral Flow (ALF). For starters, it hopes to get a rapid at-home test for Covid-19 approved and then brought to market, but the company has plenty of other tests up its proverbial sleeve.
The innovation is in the ALF segment – the company recently announced promising results from a third-party study showing that the ALF COVID-19 antigen test is 100% accurate with the PCR test. Virus loads. That’s why other in-house lateral flow tests are often shorter and (in part) the first time we do PCR. The result is that ALF technology allows for better and earlier detection of viruses.
“Our vision at Senzo is clear: to make disease diagnosis faster, easier, cheaper and more accurate than taking a temperature or blood pressure reading,” Senzo CEO Jeremy Stakawitz told TechCrunch. “The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the potential of precision care diagnostics. Our ALF technology turns that potential into myriad applications, with more and earlier diagnoses leading to better patient outcomes and more timely and cost-effective patient care.
Senzo is making lateral flow tests for professional use in home and other applications. The company suggests that many viruses — including influenza, HIV, tuberculosis, strep, hepatitis C, sexually transmitted infections and many other viruses — may be candidates for at-home tests. These diseases are often related to the cost and time in the central laboratories.
The company recently announced a $2 million equity fund led by BioAdvance. Health coaches also participated in the round. The company told me it had a pre-funding estimate of $20 million and indicated that was a big step up from its Q1 2021 fundraising estimate. The company views the round as pre-seed, saying it will raise a large Series A in early 2023.
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