Female-led antimicrobial resistance startup secures €24 million

ShanX Medtech, a female-led AMR diagnostics startup, has secured €24m to scale its rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) technology.

The Eindhoven-based company has closed a €15m seed round and been awarded an €8.85m European Commission contract developed by the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority in collaboration with the European Health and Digital Executive Agency.

Founded in 2019, ShanX Medtech develops in-vitro diagnostic solutions for antimicrobial susceptibility testing, which determines which antibiotics will work against a specific infection.

The company says its technology can deliver results within an hour, compared to current methods which take longer.

The platform uses proprietary chemistry called FLORA to monitor pathogen metabolism in real time. According to the company, this requires limited user involvement and offers an improvement over approaches that need trained expertise.

Dr Sophia E. Shanko, founder and chief executive of ShanX Medtech, said: “We founded ShanX Medtech because of a single patient story, one that revealed how much is at stake when diagnostic results arrive too late.”

“Our vision is to equip every clinician with the ability to act decisively, guided by diagnostic evidence in real-time.

“This funding brings us significantly closer to delivering ultra-rapid AST directly to both laboratory and point-of-care environments; faster, simpler, and more accessible than ever before.”

The company’s initial market focus is on urinary tract infections, a common women’s health application, though the underlying platform has potential across wider clinical uses.

The oversubscribed seed round includes equity, grants and the Innovatiekrediet. The equity investment was led by Borski Fund, NextGen Ventures, CbusineZ, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij, Invest-NL and a strategic angel fund.

Simone Brummelhuis, partner at Borski Fund, said: “Following an extensive market analysis of innovations addressing antimicrobial resistance, ShanX’s technology clearly emerged as best-in-class.

“While the company’s initial go-to-market strategy focuses on a well-defined women’s health application in urinary tract infections, the underlying platform offers substantial potential across a wide range of clinical indications.

“We are proud to support Sophia and her exceptional team in realising their ambitious vision.

“The oversubscribed financing round, together with multiple multi-million-euro commercial contracts, underscores both the strength of the technology and the founder’s proven commercial execution.”