HuiGuan Bio Completes Tens of Millions RMB Pre-A Financing to Accelerate Domestic Production of High-End Microscopy Instruments for Life Sciences

VCBeat has learned that Wuhan SMAVEW Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (“SMAVEW”), a provider of high-end biomedical imaging technologies, recently completed a Pre-A financing round worth tens of millions of yuan. The round was jointly invested by Wuhan Yifeng Zhuohua Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) and Guangdong Tiexin Capital Co., Ltd. The funds will be used to enhance the company’s R&D capabilities, expand its product portfolio, broaden market reach, and optimize the upstream and downstream segments of its industry chain.

SMAVEW was founded in September 2022, focusing on the development of advanced cellular imaging technologies. Leveraging its core proprietary technologies—light field modulation and brain-inspired AI image algorithms—the company is committed to providing high-end imaging instruments and services to the market.

Leveraging its unique light-sheet microscopy technology with multi-stage non-diffracting beam modulation, SMAVEW has generated an ultra-thin 450 nm “light knife” for “virtual sectioning” of cells, achieving the highest tomographic imaging resolution currently available worldwide. Its pioneering super-depth-of-field oblique light-sheet detection technology further breaks the limitations of magnification ranges, enabling high-speed 3D imaging across multiple scenarios and scales. This technology provides a disruptive tool for critical applications such as large-scale cellular imaging, organoid-based drug screening, and high-throughput 3D imaging of whole organs, significantly enhancing research efficiency in life sciences and biomedicine.

In the field of 3D image data analysis, SMAVEW has pioneered a brain-inspired AI image algorithm that enables efficient and precise enhancement and quantitative analysis of massive datasets. Through its “hardware-software integration” approach, SMAVEW has supported the Department of Hematology at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan in conducting research on predicting the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy, which has recently been accepted for publication by the prestigious international journal Nature Communications. This work holds promise for guiding clinical medication strategies for tumors that are refractory and prone to recurrence. Currently, SMAVEW is collaborating with the Department of Pathology at Tongji Hospital in Wuhan to conduct clinical trials.

Currently, SMAVEW has successfully established a high-caliber R&D team of over 30 members, with professional technical support staff accounting for more than 50% of the team, and is continuously bringing in fresh talent. Within less than two years since its establishment, SMAVEW has filed six patents domestically and internationally, with its core invention patent granted in just three months.

To deepen research and applications in the field of intelligent cell imaging, SMAVEW entered into a strategic partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Industrial Innovation and Development in 2024, jointly establishing the Institute of Intelligent Cell Imaging. In the same year, SMAVEW won the first prize in the Peak Competition of the China Optics Valley 3551 International Entrepreneurship Competition and was selected for the Wuhan Incubation Program for Start-up Technology Enterprises.

SMAVEW is actively committed to the innovation and development of global cellular imaging technologies. Catering to the scientific research market, it provides comprehensive instrumentation and testing services to leading universities, hospitals, and research institutions both in China and abroad, facilitating the advancement of scientific research. In response to the current demand for precision medicine in hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, it supplies authoritative analytical instruments for drug development, toxicological assessment, and pathological diagnosis.

SmartView All-Scenario Universal Intelligent Light-Sheet Microscope

SMAVEW’s independently developed SmartView, a universal intelligent light-sheet microscope for all scenarios, redefines light-sheet microscopy by overcoming the limitations of traditional systems through its novel single-objective light-sheet modality. On one hand, SmartView’s open sample operation space eliminates the need for specialized sample holders, making it compatible with standard carriers such as confocal dishes, multi-well plates, organ-on-a-chip devices, and glass slides. On the other hand, SmartView achieves the industry’s only flexible magnification switching from 4× to 100×, catering to diverse application needs ranging from subcellular structures and live cells to organoids and whole organs, thereby maximizing the advantages of light-sheet microscopy.

Notably, this microscope employs SMAVEW’s independently developed next-generation ultra-thin non-diffracting static light-sheet imaging technology, DR-SPIM. While maintaining ultra-high tomographic precision, it also offers advantages such as high speed and low toxicity, enabling long-term, high-definition, three-dimensional dynamic observation to capture subtle changes in samples.

Furthermore, by incorporating brain-inspired AI data processing technology, the SmartView microscope enables intelligent analysis and processing of massive 4D datasets (3D spatial + 1D temporal).

Currently, this microscope has garnered favor from numerous research institutions, including Tsinghua University, Tongji Hospital, and the Institute of Neuroscience at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with whom in-depth collaborative research has been conducted. Leveraging the world’s only cross-scale, full-scenario inverted single-objective light-sheet imaging modality, SMAVEW is poised to jointly launch a dual-modal light-sheet and confocal microscopy system with Olympus, a leading global manufacturer of optical instruments.

MacroView Ultra-High-Throughput Macroscopic Light-Sheet Microscope

MacroView Ultra-High-Throughput Macroscopic Light-Sheet Imaging Microscopy System leverages SMAVEW’s proprietary next-generation diffraction-free static light-sheet imaging technology, DR-SPIM. It achieves a tomographic resolution of up to 1 μm at the centimeter scale, providing a powerful tool for comprehensive observation of various tissues and organs, and supports high-resolution 3D imaging of entire mouse specimens. Notably, in the field of brain science, MacroView features the exclusive pixel-level Allen Brain Atlas registration software, BIRDS, which enables 3D brain region segmentation for terabyte-scale datasets, mapping 3D brain images into “3D atlases” to advance brain research. High-resolution imaging of the whole mouse brain can be completed within minutes, significantly enhancing experimental efficiency.

Furthermore, this microscope is ready to use right out of the box, eliminating the need for cumbersome parameter adjustments and allowing researchers to focus more on the experiments themselves. It supports stepless zoom across multiple magnifications, enabling seamless observation from 0.63× to 12.6×, which ensures precise and consistent imaging, providing robust support for the imaging analysis of large biological samples.

Introduction by Dr. Zhao Yuxuan, General Manager of SMAVEWThe company stated that, while consolidating its current life sciences instrumentation business, it will further develop transformative light-sheet 3D digital pathology instruments and solutions. These innovations aim to achieve multi-scale panoramic imaging and intelligent diagnosis of tissue and cellular pathology, bringing a new dimension to the pathology industry. The company’s proprietary single-objective light-sheet 3D imaging technology will overcome the traditional limitations of light-sheet microscopy in achieving cross-scale zooming, enabling high-throughput 3D detection through “coarse-fine integrated intelligent scanning.” For multi-marker detection, a novel hyperspectral unmixing technology has been introduced to decipher complex histopathological microenvironments. For H&E pathological examination, virtual staining technology is employed to provide precise H&E-style visualization. Finally, by constructing an intelligent network for 3D pathological analysis, automated auxiliary analysis and screening are realized, offering one-stop, panoramic 3D pathology services. This is an emerging technology with immense potential and value. As the technology continues to improve and its applications expand, we have reason to believe that it will strongly propel the field of pathological diagnosis toward greater multidimensionality and intelligence.

Professor Fei Peng, Chief Scientist at SMAVEWStatement: Grounded in multimodal, cross-scale biomedical imaging technology, the company is deeply committed to translating cutting-edge technologies into practical production applications, thereby substantively serving public health. Its development goals align with China’s major national strategies for achieving self-reliance and controllability in high-end scientific instruments and medical devices. The launched products not only boast internationally leading precision and speed but also offer broad compatibility with both life sciences research and clinical diagnostics. SMAVEW will actively respond to national strategies for technological innovation and support key initiatives to promote the local biomedical industry, enhancing Hubei Province’s overall strength in biomedical imaging. It aims to provide researchers across China with a high-level experimental platform, accelerating rapid development in related fields. With continuous technological advancements and expanding application scenarios, multimodal, cross-scale biomedical imaging technology will play an increasingly vital role in more areas. We hope that more researchers and enterprises will join in the research and development efforts in this field, jointly promoting the sustained innovation and development of biomedical imaging technologies and devices.

Zhang Chao, Head of Yifeng Zhuohua FundStatement: In the field of cellular imaging, SMAVEW, starting with its independently developed cross-scale, all-scenario general-purpose light-sheet microscope, and leveraging high-end imaging instruments and services, is poised to significantly enhance research and clinical efficiency in multiple areas, including organoid drug screening, high-throughput 3D imaging of whole organs, and 3D pathological detection. Based in Hubei, Wuhan Yifeng Zhuohua Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership) is committed to investing in outstanding technology commercialization projects across China, focusing on early-stage, small-scale, and innovative ventures. After systematically reviewing a portfolio of promising technology commercialization projects from leading universities and hospitals such as Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan Tongji Hospital, and Wuhan Union Hospital, we have become even more confident in SMAVEW’s rapid growth under the leadership of Professor Fei and Mr. Zhao. The company is well-positioned to become a representative example of successful university technology commercialization.