SpectaCell Raises €6 Million to Speed Cell-Therapy Testing With AI-Powered Imaging
SpectaCell, a Belgium-based biotech startup, announced October 8 it has secured €6 million in seed funding led by imec.xpand, with participation from PMV's Flanders Future Tech Fund, InnovationQuarter Capital, Qbic and VIB. The company is developing a lens-free imaging platform that uses artificial intelligence to analyze cell therapies, delivering potency readouts in four hours.
The timing aligns with heightened regulatory focus on cell-therapy quality control. In December 2023, the FDA published draft guidance on potency assurance for cellular and gene therapies, urging developers to validate quality-control assays throughout the development lifecycle. SpectaCell aims to address that manufacturing bottleneck with chip-based imaging that tracks thousands of immune cells as they attack targets in real time, eliminating the need for labels or manual microscopy.
At the core of SpectaCell's technology is a system that pairs effector cells with target cells inside micro-compartmentalized cartridges. The platform captures morphological and kinetic changes at single-cell resolution, running more than 10,000 cell-cell interactions per test and delivering potency readouts in four hours, according to the company. A stackable instrument design means labs can deploy the same hardware from early research through final manufacturing release testing.
Unlike conventional methods that rely on static endpoints, SpectaCell's approach is label-free and tracks dynamic cell behavior as it unfolds. The technology has potential applications across CAR-T cell therapies and T-cell engager drugs, two of the fastest-growing segments in oncology.
The startup represents an unusual pedigree. It's the first joint spin-out from imec, VIB and Ghent University, bringing together Belgium's semiconductor research powerhouse with its life sciences infrastructure. Co-founders Tony Montoye, Veronique De Vroey, Mathieu Rabaey and Jan Van de Velde have collectively logged time at VIB, Trinean, Unchained Labs, CellCarta, Biocartis, Tibotec-Virco, Johnson & Johnson and Galapagos. Montoye, who serves as CEO and holds a PhD-level background in biochemistry, declined to specify employee count beyond saying the team remains small. LinkedIn data suggested between two and ten employees as of late last year.
The company operates sites in both Ghent and Leiden, straddling Belgium's Flemish biotech corridor and the Netherlands' South Holland cluster. Ghent University recently opened The Nucleus campus hub, which houses VIB's bio-incubator alongside manufacturing sites for Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech, underscoring the region's growing cell-therapy infrastructure.
SpectaCell plans to deploy the fresh capital toward platform development and co-validation studies with pharmaceutical and biotech partners, according to InnovationQuarter. A portion of the funding will link Ghent-based development work with validation efforts in Leiden, tapping into the South Holland biotech ecosystem. The company declined to disclose its valuation or cumulative fundraising total. It also benefits from European Union support under the InvestEU Fund.
The funding comes amid broader investor interest in label-free cell-analysis tools. CellChorus secured an NCI SBIR grant recently to develop AI-assisted time-lapse assays for CAR-T response signatures in collaboration with Stanford Medicine. Bruker acquired PhenomeX, formerly known as IsoPlexis, in October 2023, adding single-cell functional proteomics capabilities. Phasefocus markets the Livecyte platform for quantitative phase imaging, while Deepcell uses AI-powered morphology analysis for single-cell sorting and announced a collaboration with NVIDIA in early 2024.
SpectaCell differentiates itself on speed and workflow integration, positioning the same instrument for discovery, process development and lot release. The company has not yet disclosed commercial customers.
"Breakthrough medicines need breakthrough tools," Montoye said in the announcement. "We are building a new standard in cell analysis: detailed insight, results within hours."
Benoit Devogelaere, partner at imec.xpand, said his firm is "convinced that SpectaCell can become essential to how new medicines are selected, developed and produced."
Whether that conviction translates into market traction will depend partly on how quickly regulators and manufacturers embrace real-time potency testing over established methods. For now, SpectaCell has capital and partnerships to make its case.
