9 July 2020

Deciphex Close $6.2m Series A Fundraising to Accelerate Commercialisation and Research Programs

Deciphex an Irish based technology player, developing ergonomic digital pathology workflows and AI for histopathology, has announced the conclusion of a $6.2m Series A fundraising which will empower the company to accelerate its research and development in Artificial Intelligence and to further accelerate market entry in preclincial/toxicologic digital pathology.

The round brings together a number of indigenous and US investors with significant experience in life science and diagnostics investment in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland, the Irish government organisation responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. The round includes participation from Irish based investors IRRUS Investments, HBAN MedTech syndicate, ACT Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland in conjunction with US based, NextSteps Capital and GI Partners of Illinois.

Since its foundation in 2017, the company already has two products in-market. Patholytix Preclinical, already in use by many of the world's leading Pharma and CROs, is designed to accelerate the evaluation of drug safety, streamlining the interaction between distributed pharma sites and external collaborators while also accelerating the review of digital pathology specimens in preclinical/toxicologic pathology.  Patholytix AI, layers on the benefits of Artificial Intelligence allowing users to triage samples using AI-based interpretation of histology images.  

The investment will underpin the recently announced collaborative research program in place with Charles River. The investment also augments the company's ability to maximise existing successes in grant funding received. The company is part of a successful €2m consortium under the EU Fast Track to Innovation Program involving Janssen Pharmaceuticals and a €5.6m Government of Ireland, Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund, involving University College Dublin, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland, Mater Hospital, Dublin, Ireland and IBM Research to transform the diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer.   The company has recently opened a US facility in Chicago from where it offers high throughput digital pathology digitisation services and plans to further strengthen our US presence in the future. 

Dr Donal O’Shea, CEO of Deciphex says:

“We are really excited to announce a fully subscribed Series A round, which allows the company to scale effectively to the next level in its journey. The investment will have a huge impact on our ability to accelerate our commercialisation program and to continue to bring the best possible products and services  to our customers and collaborators.  Our  investors have strong domain experience in software, lifesciences, healthcare and intellectual property, which provides us with a strong value add to the capital available.”