NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Ceres Nanosciences announced today it has closed on $3 million in Series A financing, part of what the company said was a larger $9 million Series A round.
The round was led by Concord, Massachusetts-based venture firm GreyBird Ventures, which has said it intends to provide a total of up to $5.5 million in funds over the next year.
The company said it intends to use the financing to further develop its Lyme disease diagnostic. The test uses Ceres' Nanotrap enrichment technology to detect Lyme antigens in patient urine at the early stages of the disease. Developed at George Mason University, the Nanotrap uses hydrogel particles to capture, preserve, and enrich target analytes, allowing for more sensitive detection of low abundance molecules.
"Ceres Nanosciences has solved a fundamental problem in precision medicine, concentrating the most interesting biomarkers of early stage disease that have a low natural abundance," GreyBird Cofounder Tom Miller said in a statement. "The Lyme disease test is just the first example."
Ceres also announced that Miller has recently joined its board of directors.