Lingel Tech completes tens of millions of RMB Series A+ financing, focusing on high-performance tissue repair and regenerative medicine material r&d and clinical application

Recently, Lingel Tech announced the completion of a tens of millions of RMB Series A+ financing round. This round was co-invested by Fortera Capital and Shanghai Fengxian Fund. WinX Capital served as the financial advisor and will continue to be responsible for subsequent financing.

The proceeds from this round will be primarily used to build the company's large-scale production capacity, improve its commercial system, and establish its sales network. These efforts will support the launch of the company's first core product to receive a Class III medical device certificate within 2026—the photocurable wound sealant—and drive the company to become a leader in the field of high-performance hydrogel materials.

The company has already initiated a new round of financing, which will be used for the construction of a production base, commercial promotion of products, and the research and development of new products.

Lingel Tech and its predecessor entity were founded in 2017, pioneering globally leading proprietary technologies for constructing biomaterials using photochemical and orthogonal chemical reactions. The company is a frontrunner in the next generation of biomedical materials.

Lingel Tech is dedicated to building a full-industry-chain platform covering research, development, manufacturing, sales, and services for innovative bioengineering materials in the field of tissue repair and regenerative medicine. At the current stage, the company's business covers absorbable hemostatic products, in situ integrated wound repair products, high-strength tissue adhesives and sealants, implantable or interventional tissue engineering scaffolds, bio-inks, biomedical raw materials, and contract research and manufacturing services. In the future, Lingel Tech will expand its products into interventional medicine, purification and separation, aesthetic fillers, cell culture, consumer healthcare, and other fields, aiming to become a cross-disciplinary comprehensive leader in advanced materials.

Lingel Tech's research, development, and commercialization team is led by Professor Lin-Yong Zhu from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, an internationally renowned top scientist in the biomaterials field. Together with multiple academicians, professors, doctors, and medical experts, and following more than a decade of continuous research, the team has created, optimized, and iterated a series of innovative biomedical material products with globally leading advantages in mechanical strength, synthesis speed, and production cost. These include medical photosensitive hydrogels, high-strength and high-toughness hemostatic sponges, and microgel particles. Among these, the "photocurable wound sealant" has been granted access to the National Innovative Medical Device Special Review and Approval Process. The team has also published a series of high-impact papers in internationally renowned journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Synthesis, and Advanced Materials. The company has obtained multiple relevant patents in China and PCT international patents, with complete and clear intellectual property rights, laying the foundation for Lingel Tech's future global strategic expansion.

Zhu Linyong is the founder of Shanghai Lingel Tech Co., Ltd. He is a Distinguished Professor and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He studied in the Department of Chemistry at Beijing Normal University, the Institute of Photographic Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Washington State University, and the University of California, San Diego. He was a student of Marye Anne Fox, a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and a world-renowned photochemist. In 2008, he was appointed as a Distinguished Professor at East China University of Science and Technology. In 2012, he was appointed as a Shanghai "Eastern Scholar" Distinguished Professor. In 2014, he received funding from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars. In 2015, he received the Shanghai "Eastern Scholar" Tracking Award. In 2021, he was appointed as a Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Since 2012, Professor Zhu has led his team to overcome core technical challenges in photochemical coupling reaction mechanisms, mechanical property enhancement of hydrogels, and processing technique optimization. By 2023, over a decade of research had resulted in SCI-indexed publications with an cumulative impact factor exceeding 350 and more than 10,000 cumulative citations. These achievements have established the core technologies and product platform of Lingel Tech, laying a solid foundation for the industrialization of the company's products.

Hydrogels are a class of semi-solid materials characterized by a molecular network that retains a high water content, allowing water molecules to migrate freely. They possess properties such as high water content, similarity to human soft tissue, breathability and permeability, and designable and expandable interfacial substance exchange capabilities. As a result, hydrogels are considered to have broad application prospects in medical, consumer, industrial, environmental protection, and other fields. However, their widespread application has long been limited by shortcomings including poor mechanical properties, high complexity of existing manufacturing processes, and difficulties in cost control. To achieve large-scale application in scenarios such as healthcare, breakthroughs must be achieved in three key areas: mechanical strength, synthesis speed, and cost.

Inspired by natural materials, Lingel Tech has designed a highly ordered and robust microstructure between two separate phases, obtaining hydrogel materials with excellent mechanical strength. Based on the rapid crosslinking of high-rigidity hyaluronic acid particles and PEG scaffolds under visible light of specific wavelengths, the material enables the curing of ultra-high toughness hydrogels within seconds. The mechanical strength of the reaction product can exceed 20 MPa, which is one to two orders of magnitude higher than that of similar products. The synthesis time has also been shortened from days to weeks using existing processes down to seconds, while retaining all the inherent advantages of hydrogel materials. These results have been published in top international journals such as Nature Materials. The significant improvements in preparation speed, cost, and mechanical strength make Lingel Tech's hydrogel materials feasible for wound management, luminal surgery, and a wider range of medical and consumer applications. Additionally, the material possesses in situ forming and high-precision processing capabilities, enabling a breakthrough in the commercial value of hydrogel materials.

Lingel Tech has already achieved stable kilogram-scale production of photosensitive polymers and polymer scaffold materials, and has expanded its product portfolio into two major categories: in situ curable hydrogel solutions and pre-cured hydrogel profiles. Some of these products have already entered the commercialization stage, while its flagship product — the photocurable wound sealant — has entered the registration review and supplementary information submission stage. This product has received extensive positive feedback from clinical applications at leading hospitals such as Changhai Hospital and Wuhan Union Hospital, and is expected to obtain a Class III medical device certificate within the year. It will be used in large-scale applications including postoperative wound repair, luminal tract repair, and anti-adhesion, targeting the multi-billion dollar global wound management market. At the same time, the company will also launch a series of hydrogel profiles and disinfection code products, covering broader application scenarios such as interventional medicine, artificial blood vessels, aesthetic fillers, home personal care, and industrial environmental protection. In the future, through the expansion of product categories and application scenarios, Lingel Tech will not only introduce a comprehensive, full-specification matrix of hydrogel biomaterials for all scenarios, but will also further develop into an integrated platform company combining raw materials, formulations, and devices through its raw material supply, technology, and CDMO services.

Lingel Tech has already built a liquid formulation production base of nearly 2,000 square meters in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province. Its core raw material and solid formulation production base in Fengxian, Shanghai has also broken ground and is scheduled to be put into use in the middle of the year. Starting this year, Lingel Tech will achieve initial commercialization through sales of research-grade products, disinfection code products, and Class II medical devices, and will subsequently initiate sales of Class III medical devices. The company will continue to drive revenue growth through a combination of direct research sales, online and offline channels, and strategic partnerships.

The company has previously received investments from industry players covering leading orthopedics and general surgery fields in China, including Naton Medical Group, as well as top-tier market-oriented funds and state-owned capital such as Chiron Ventures, Hanne Capital, and Fortera Capital. This represents the recognition Lingel Tech has earned from both industry and capital markets.