Singleron Biotechnologies Completes Tens of Millions RMB Pre-A Funding Round to Advance Ramanome-Based Single-Cell Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Platform

Recently, eCyte, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “eCyte”) announced the completion of its Pre-A financing round, amounting to tens of millions of yuan. The round was led by Nanjing Gaoke Xinjun, with Zhejiang Hengji participating as a co-investor, and Yipie Capital serving as the exclusive financial advisor. This funding will drive eCyte’s industrial layout, accelerate the promotion of its “Raman-omics” platform, strengthen brand building and team development, and expand the influence of its instrumentation products and technical services in both domestic and international markets.

eCyte, founded in 2014, is a commercial spin-off incubated by the Single-Cell Center of the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Leveraging Raman-activated cell sorting (RACS) technology, the company addresses core bottlenecks such as label-free identification and high-throughput sorting of single-cell metabolic functions. It provides an integrated “single-cell Raman imaging–sorting–sequencing–culturing” solution, serving a broad range of fields including clinical precision medication, human and environmental microbiomes, biological resource exploration, cell factory screening, industrial process monitoring, and biosafety.

Regarding the core team, Dr. Xu Jian, Co-founder of eCyte, earned his bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Peking University, followed by a Master’s in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Washington University in St. Louis. He currently serves as Director of the Single-Cell Center at the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Director of the Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy Biosciences and Genetic Resources; and Member of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Dr. Xu has long been engaged in research on single-cell Raman imaging, sorting, and sequencing, supporting microbiome detection and microalgal synthetic biology. The company’s other Co-founder, Dr. Ma Bo, holds a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS. He previously conducted scientific research at the University of California and Rice University in the United States. Currently serving as Deputy Director of the Single-Cell Center at QIBEBT, Dr. Ma has extensive experience in key microfluidic technologies and devices, with over ten years of R&D expertise in single-cell technologies and instrumentation.

The concept of the “Ramanome,” proposed by Researcher Xu Jian and colleagues, is a broadly applicable, non-invasive metabolic phenome with high spatiotemporal resolution at single-cell precision.

Ramanomics quantitatively translates the molecular spectra of intracellular metabolites into key metabolic functions of cells, such as substrate metabolism, product synthesis, drug susceptibility, and environmental stress response. It offers advantages including being label-free, non-destructive, broadly applicable, viable for live-cell analysis, providing panoramic phenotypic profiling, capable of resolving complex functions, rapid, high-throughput, low-cost, and compatible with downstream single-cell sequencing (or cultivation). Therefore, Ramanomics complements single-cell genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics, jointly establishing a comprehensive single-cell multi-omics methodological framework that spans from metabolic phenomics to genomics.

Studies have demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy can quantitatively assess metabolic rates of cells utilizing hydrogen- and carbon-containing substrates at single-cell resolution; determine the diversity and abundance of various Raman-sensitive products (such as pigments, triglycerides, starch, and proteins); characterize cellular environmental stress responses (including microbial drug susceptibility, microbial drug stress mechanisms, tumor drug sensitivity, and drug stress mechanisms); detect metabolic interactions between cells; reconstruct intracellular metabolic conversion networks; and distinguish different species.

Leveraging its Raman-omics platform technology, eCyte develops and markets a suite of single-cell analysis instruments, including the high-throughput flow Raman cell sorter FlowRACS, the clinical single-cell Raman antimicrobial susceptibility rapid tester CAST-R, the single-cell Raman optical tweezers sorter RACS-Seq, and the single-cell microdroplet sorting system EasySort, along with various kits for microbiome analysis, single-cell whole-genome/trace nucleic acid amplification, and single-cell culture.

In the medical field, Raman-activated cell sorting (RACS) technology holds broad prospects, serving markets such as the diagnosis and treatment of microbial infections, cancer detection, and cell therapy. eCyte focuses on the market for rapid clinical antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), providing next-generation instruments for rapid AST. Furthermore, in the research and industrial sectors, eCyte offers technical services including single-cell metabolic function identification, sorting, and sequencing.

The threat of global antibiotic resistance is becoming increasingly severe. It is reported that over 700,000 people worldwide die annually from infections caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria; if this trend continues unchecked, it is projected that “superbugs” will cause 10 million deaths per year by 2050. To curb the spread of drug resistance, China has mandated that 30% of inpatient antibiotic prescriptions must be guided by antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), thereby driving the rapid expansion of the AST market, which is now valued at RMB 30–50 billion.

However, traditional phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) based on bacterial “growth” is often inaccurate and time-consuming, typically requiring 2–3 days, which falls far short of the high demands for precision and efficiency in clinical AST. CAST-R, developed by eCyte, achieves single-bacterial-cell detection accuracy without the need for bacterial culture, with an identification accuracy exceeding 90%. It enables metabolism-based phenotypic AST within a single day (as fast as 3 hours), ensuring both high precision and high efficiency.

Recently, a collaborative team comprising the Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Qingdao Municipal Hospital developed CAST-R-HP, an integrated diagnostic and therapeutic technology for *Helicobacter pylori* (*H. pylori*) based on eCyte’s clinical single-cell Raman antimicrobial susceptibility testing system (CAST-R). Operating at single-cell resolution, CAST-R-HP integrates the entire workflow of “identification–antimicrobial susceptibility testing–source tracking.” It offers advantages such as rapid pathogen identification, precise phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and support for researching resistance mechanisms and performing precise source tracking through single-cell whole-genome analysis. These findings were recently published in *Clinical Chemistry*. In the future, eCyte will continue to develop and expand the applications of CAST-R, providing novel solutions for precision medication and curbing the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Researcher Xu Jian, Co-founder of eCyteHe stated that eCyte’s goal is to establish a “functional ID card” system for every cell on Earth, thereby enabling non-destructive, real-time, and in-depth detection and mining of biological resources found in nature and the human body. We extend our gratitude to the investors for their recognition and support of this mission, as well as to the eCyte team for their dedication and hard work.

Dr. Bo Ma, Co-founder of eCytestated that “Xingsai” is the Chinese phonetic transliteration of “single-cell,” which clarifies that the company’s core products are a series of single-cell analysis and sorting instruments based on novel concepts such as Raman-omics and meta-Raman-omics.

Dr. Wang Lin, Partner at Nanjing Gaoke Xinjun CapitaleCyte has successfully developed a Raman spectroscopy-based detection platform and proposed the development direction of “Ramanomics,” significantly enhancing the value and efficiency of current single-cell multi-omics data. This detection platform can be widely applied in single-cell analysis, synthetic biology, and drug-resistant bacteria detection, providing more tools for research, industrial, and medical fields. The domestic high-end laboratory instrument market has long been monopolized by foreign companies. eCyte is poised to pioneer new markets in the high-end laboratory instrument sector, making significant and far-reaching contributions to the construction of the single-cell industry ecosystem.

Zhejiang HengjiIt was stated that antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to human health in the 21st century, and the key to curbing its emergence lies in the precise use of antibiotics. Through a series of original innovations spanning detection principles, key components, and medical devices, eCyte has invented a technological and instrumental system capable of detecting and even tracing bacterial drug resistance at the precision of individual bacterial cells with rapid turnaround. Furthermore, the company proposed MIC-MA, a novel antimicrobial susceptibility parameter complementary to the traditional Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC). These products hold promise for addressing the critical challenges and pain points associated with the precise administration of antibiotics on a global scale.