The funds will accelerate the clinical validation of the breath collector for non-invasive sampling of patients with Tuberculosis and other respiratory infections.
September 20, 2022. Avelo AG, a Swiss breath diagnostics company with a mission to make every breath count for better infectious disease diagnosis, announced the closing of a CHF 2.2 million seed round. The seed financing round was led by OCCIDENT, with participation from Privilège Ventures, Arve Capital, Zürcher Kantonalbank and several MedTech angel investors.
Diagnosing Tuberculosis and lower respiratory tract infections causing pneumonia, the 4th leading cause of death worldwide, is neither easy nor reliable. Avelo makes every breath count with its breath collector. Doctors use it to painlessly collect a patient’s breath sample from the respiratory tract and analyze it with existing PCR tests for fast and accurate diagnosis. With the results they can take proper action like selecting the right treatment or referring severe cases to the hospital. This improves patient outcomes and saves healthcare costs. It may also help to reduce the more than 65% of antibiotics unnecessarily prescribed in primary care. Avelo invented its breath collector with broad utility in mind, comparable to other sample collection technologies such as blood tubes.
“Our innovation is a novel breath sampling technology that contains a functional nanofiber filter. This filter combines the collection of human breath aerosols that contain infectious pathogens from the respiratory tract with a quick and efficient release of these pathogens for subsequent detection. It is compatible with a variety of molecular tests and laboratory workflows, is affordable and scalable, and enables breath biobanking for the first time”, says Tobias Broger, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Avelo.
Avelo will use the seed funding to drive product development, clinical validation studies as well as business development activities for successful market entry. “We are very happy about our investor consortium. They not only bring in financial resources but also, and more importantly, long-standing industry experience. Their business networks and scale-up expertise will accelerate our journey to make AveloCollect available for better diagnosis of respiratory infections and ultimately to save lives,” said Melanie Aregger, CEO & Co-founder.
Cédric Barra, Senior Investment Manager for the life sciences sector at OCCIDENT, commented on the exciting potential impact Avelo brings to diagnosis of respiratory infections. “We are very excited to welcome Avelo to our portfolio. The combination of a non-invasive sampling method and the existing lab infrastructure provides a lot of potential and serves the needs of the patients and the industry perfectly,” said Barra.
“Companies succeed because of the right team and product: Avelo has them both. We are thrilled to be part of this round and to be able to contribute to the development of Avelo in the years to come,” said Jacqueline Ruedin Rüsch, Founding General Partner of Privilège Ventures.
For more information, please contact:
Melanie Aregger, CEO & Co-founder, Avelo AG
hello@avelolife.com