ELDICO Scientific AG Raises More Than CHF 1.5 Million to Boost Product Development
06.05.2020
The award-winning deep-tech startup ELDICO Scientific AG closes a seed-funding round and raises more than CHF 1.5 million from private and institutional investors. Less than one year after its foundation in June 2019, the company is thus valued at around CHF 6.5 million (post-money).
 From left to right: Dr. Gustavo Santiso (Chief Scientific Officer), Nils Gebhardt (CFO), Dr. Eric Hovestreydt (CEO), Dr. Gunther Steinfeld (CTO)
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In addition to BERNINA BioInvest, acting as lead investor, and several industry-savvy private investors from Germany and the Netherlands, the Aargauische Kantonalbank (AKB) and Venture Kick are also among the investors.
“Electron diffraction is a highly innovative technology used in the field of nano-crystallography, i.e. nanocrystalline solid-state analysis. Pharmaceutical companies use these analyses for their drug discovery and can thus identify more active pharmaceutical ingredients in a shorter time and use their research funds in a more targeted manner,” says Dr. Eric Hovestreydt, founder and CEO of ELDICO Scientific.
ELDICO will be launching the first electron diffractometer specially designed for nano-crystallographic research – an instrument that does not yet exist today. ELDICO plans to have the first instrument ready for use at the customer's premises in the first quarter of 2021. After that, the rapid expansion of production is projected. At present, work on product development is proceeding at full speed: Suppliers and development partners from five countries are contributing to the project, including the Swedish company Excillum, the German companies Axilon and SmarAct, and the world's leading manufacturer of 2D detectors in Switzerland, Dectris (Baden, CH).
In 2019, ELDICO Scientific was a Venture Kick winner, which laid the foundation for the recent seed-funding round: “Venture Kick has helped us in two ways: First, we took the Kickers presentation as a trigger to focus on our messaging and prepare a really good pitch. This sounds easier as it is, but the training sessions provided all the necessary support,” said Nils Gebhardt, Co-founder and CFO of ELDICO Scientific AG. “The pitch, particularly the stage-2 pitch, brought us in contact with real investors. Actually, we found our lead investor during the session. This has been facilitating many developments since then.”
The ELDICO Scientific team (from left to right): Dr. Gustavo Santiso (Chief Scientific Officer), Nils Gebhardt (CFO), Dr. Eric Hovestreydt (CEO), Dr. Gunther Steinfeld (CTO)
Source: ELDICO Scientific AG press release (May 6, 2020)