Naxi Technology Completes Angel Funding Round to Advance Breakthroughs in High-End Optical Microscopy

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that Beijing Naxi Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Naxi Tech”) recently completed its angel round of financing, led byGL Ventures Investment. This financing will primarily be used for the continuous iterative upgrades and market promotion of the Multi-SIM (Multi-Modal Structured Illumination Super-Resolution Intelligent Microscopy) product line, providing users with a more comprehensive end-to-end solution for live-cell super-resolution imaging, and accelerating Naxi Technology’s development in related business areas.

Naxi Technology was established in April 2021. Its core technologies stem from over a decade of serial R&D achievements in super-resolution imaging by the team led by Li Dong at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. These related technologies have received numerous domestic and international awards. Driven by the mission to develop high-end microscopy imaging equipment, Naxi Technology is committed to breaking down technical barriers and continuously developing breakthrough microscopy technologies and products. With determination and innovation, the company provides technological reserves and support to address the “shortcomings” and “chokepoint” technical issues in China’s high-end optical microscopy imaging equipment sector.

Naxi Technology has successfully engineered advanced super-resolution imaging laboratory metrics into highly stable, reliable, and user-friendly commercial products. It provides users with industry-leading high-speed, long-term, super-resolution in vivo imaging high-end microscope equipment, as well as a full-process solution from sample preparation to imaging and image analysis.

Multi-SIM is an ultra-resolution microscopic imaging system independently developed, designed, and manufactured by Naxi Technology. Its core technology was recognized as one of the “Top Ten Scientific Advances in China” for 2018 by the Ministry of Science and Technology. This technology enables long-term, non-invasive imaging of dynamic events within living cells with nanometer and millisecond resolution, providing a window into key intracellular biological processes and facilitating a better understanding of molecular events under live-cell conditions.

Multi-SIM features a variety of exclusively developed super-resolution imaging modalities, along with intelligent image reconstruction and processing algorithms. It provides high-performance, versatile five-dimensional (5-D: X-Y-Z-Time-Color) super-resolution imaging solutions for basic biomedical research, clinical pathology, and precise drug screening. Compared with traditional microscopy techniques, Multi-SIM offers multiple super-resolution imaging modalities, enabling the selection of the optimal modality based on the localization and distribution characteristics of different biological processes within cells. This approach minimizes the cost of acquiring multicolor, dynamic super-resolution information, thereby extending the imaging duration.

Naxi Technology has iterated on traditional TRIF imaging technology, achieving a 2.5-fold improvement in resolution. By employing a proprietary grazing-incidence illumination mode in GI-SIM, it is particularly well-suited for observing the dynamic interactions among various intracellular organelles. The Multi-SIM product features exclusive Nonlinear-SIM technology compatible with both TIRF and GI illumination modes, further enhancing the resolution of TIRF-SIM and GI-SIM to 60–70 nm, thereby enabling clearer differentiation of subcellular structures such as the cytoskeleton and organelles. Additionally, the 3D-SIM capability within the Multi-SIM platform enables high-speed three-dimensional super-resolution imaging of the entire cell volume, with an axial imaging speed of 2.5 μm per second. This allows full-cell 3D-SIM super-resolution imaging to be completed in approximately three seconds, representing industry-leading performance.

The features of Multi-SIM extend beyond innovations in hardware design. Naxi Technology has developed deep learning-based super-resolution image reconstruction software and intuitive, user-friendly control software specifically for the physical model of Multi-SIM. Multi-SIM offers flexible configuration of various imaging modes, enabling users to tailor system operation to sample characteristics. It intelligently recommends imaging configurations based on the fluorescence intensity and morphological features of the specimen. Furthermore, its intelligent reconstruction module assists users in analyzing and selecting optimal parameters for super-resolution image reconstruction. This streamlined, smart operation simplifies technical complexities, reduces the learning curve, and minimizes the time required to become proficient with the instrument.

Multi-SIM provides a practical solution for observing the dynamic evolution of fine biological structures within cells, and has been widely welcomed by biologists both domestically and internationally. Related collaborative research has elucidated novel organelle structures and revealed new behaviors in inter-organelle interactions with ultra-high spatiotemporal resolution. The findings from this collaboration were published in Science.

Multiple collaborative research findings have been published in high-impact journals such as Nature Cell Biology, Molecular Cell, Nature Communications, and Cell Reports, thoroughly validating the performance, ease of use, stability, and reliability of the Multi-SIM system.

GL Ventures is Hillhouse’s venture capital platform dedicated to early-stage innovative companies, covering key sectors such as hard tech, software, biotechnology, new materials, emerging brands, and consumer technology. GL Ventures seeks out entrepreneurs who are passionate about technology and believe in innovation. We aim to become the first call for founders seeking financing, and we look forward to accompanying them throughout their entrepreneurial journey.