Wednesday, July 19, 2023

SiPhox raises $27M for home blood test powered by silicon photonics

SiPhox Health, a start-up based in Burlington, MA, raised $27 million in funding for its work in lab-grade home health testing kits powered by silicon photonics.

SiPhox, which was founded by MIT scientists Diedrik Vermeulen and Michael Dubrovsky, is seeking FDA clearance for its SiPhox Home platform, which will offer a broad menu of proteins and hormone tests from a finger prick blood sample, with results in five minutes or less. In the meantime, SiPhox Health has launched a mail-in blood collection kit that measures 17 biomarkers for inflammation, metabolic, hormonal and cardiovascular health.

The funding included a $10M Seed financing and a $17M Series A round. The Series A round was led by Intel Capital with participation from Khosla Ventures, Kortex Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Metaplanet, Shorewind Capital, LongeVC, Overlap Holdings and Duke Capital Partners. The Seed funding was led by Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator with participation from Metaplanet, Massachusetts Manufacturing Innovation Initiative, Rsquared, Vituity, Paul Buchheit, Balaji Srinivasan, Bob Lee, and Longevity Tech Fund among others. 

“At SiPhox Health, we are leveraging the trillions of dollars invested in the semiconductor industry to enable lab-quality results in a consumer-ready, user-friendly device,” explained Diedrik Vermeulen, SiPhox Health co-founder and CEO, and a silicon photonics pioneer who played a crucial role in developing the first coherent silicon photonic transceiver chip, now responsible for a significant share of global internet traffic.

“SiPhox’s goal is to create category-defining health tracking products starting with the SiPhox Home, which is a 100-fold improvement over existing blood diagnostics. Eventually, our technology will enable the ultimate wearable device for measuring proteins, hormones, and small molecules continuously,” said Michael Dubrovsky, SiPhox Health co-founder and Chief Product Officer. “Every cell in the human body is a much more advanced sensor than anything on the market today, showing we are nowhere near the physical limits for performance and miniaturization in diagnostics.”

www.siphoxhealth.com