ACXEL Biosciences Secures Over $10 Million in Pre-A+ Financing Led by Qiming Venture Partners

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that Foshan Aosubo Xin Technology Co., Ltd. (“Aosu Technology”) recently announced the completion of its Pre-A+ financing round, exceeding $10 million.This round of financing was led by Qiming Venture Partners, with continued investment from existing shareholders Hillhouse Venture Capital, Country Garden Venture Capital, CO-WIN Ventures, and Linear Capital. Kaicheng Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

Aosu Technology possesses a globally leading digital microfluidics platform. Its disruptive technology meets the rigorous demands of high-throughput screening, discovery, and functional research at the level of individual microbes, cells, and molecules. Leveraging large-area thin-film electronic active pixel array technology, Aosu Technology can generate massive arrays of digital microdroplets containing biological samples in parallel on a two-dimensional plane. This enables real-time detection and characterization, as well as continuous, parallel manipulation of droplets of interest, thereby strongly supporting advanced life sciences research and application development.

As a rare investment target in this field, the company has secured three rounds of financing within approximately one year, with its shareholder base comprising numerous top-tier venture capital firms and prominent industrial investors. Following this round of financing, Ausu Technology will further accelerate its layout and process development in cell biology, systems biology, and synthetic biology; enhance the R&D and manufacturing of supporting chips, equipment, and reagents; expand upstream and downstream collaborations; and continue to lead the industry.

Aosu Technology's Financing History

Aosu Technology’s founding team possesses unique and robust expertise in cutting-edge technological innovation and translational applications in cell biology development. Core team members hail from prestigious universities and research institutions both domestically and internationally, including the University of Cambridge, Peking University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Dr. Ma Hanbin, the founder of Aosu Technology, has a background in electronic engineering. In 2014, he led his team in an international collaborative project between the University of Cambridge and the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, CAS. By late 2017, the technology was transferred to the company for incubation. The company aims to leverage its proprietary active-pixel semiconductor core technology to empower the life sciences sector, providing novel solutions for the automated manipulation of micro- and nano-scale biological samples.

Regarding this round of financing,Dr. Ma Hanbin, Founder and CEO of the Companystated: “First and foremost, we extend our sincere gratitude to both new and existing shareholders for their recognition and support, which have accompanied our rapid growth in an emerging field. We also thank the governments at all levels in Foshan City for their support. Aosu Technology has established its presence in Nanhai District, Foshan City, striving towards the goal of becoming a specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative enterprise rooted in China with a global perspective. We firmly believe that the mature semiconductor manufacturing processes and consumer electronics technologies in the Greater Bay Area will enable complex life science research to be perfectly realized on a CPU-like chip. We are also convinced that chips carrying automated, high-precision experimental workflows will become the underlying technological platform for digital biology, and even serve as infrastructure for the life sciences sector.”

Lead investor of this round,Chen Kan, Partner at Qiming Venture Partnersstated: “In the era of digital biology, Ausu Technology is committed to building a globally leading microfluidics platform based on active pixel array technology. Leveraging this technological platform, we enable operations at the single-cell, microbial, and molecular levels, empowering the development of industries such as antibody drug R&D, gene editing, cell biology, and synthetic biology. The company boasts strong R&D capabilities, a first-class team, and extensive industry experience. We are confident in the company’s growth and look forward to Ausu Technology establishing its foundation in China to become a world-leading digital biology technology platform.”

Sun Lianghao, Managing Director of Country Garden Venture CapitalIt is noted that liquid microfluidics technology has recently garnered significant attention, although the focus has primarily been on single-cell sequencing. As a star startup in this sector, Aosu Technology’s digital microfluidics platform serves as an upstream technology for many emerging fields, enabling high-throughput sorting at the single-cell, single-bacterium, and molecular levels. Aosu Technology’s innovations not only substantially accelerate antibody drug development while reducing costs but also extend to other critical downstream applications, including cell therapy, synthetic biology, in vitro diagnostics (IVD), and chemical synthesis, demonstrating immense market potential.

Xi Yanbin, Partner at CO-WIN Capital Beijing Healthcare FundStatement: The company is dedicated to developing an intelligent digital microfluidics platform, achieving high-efficiency sorting and precise enrichment of single cells, thereby enhancing the efficiency of cell-related experiments and shortening R&D cycles. The microdroplets generated by the company’s digital microfluidic chips exhibit density, uniformity, and stability at the forefront of the field, earning recognition from numerous clients, including top-tier research institutions, renowned pharmaceutical companies, and synthetic biology enterprises. Following the initial investment in 2021, the company has experienced rapid growth thanks to the relentless efforts of the Aosu team, prompting us to increase our investment in this round. We highly recognize Aosu’s pursuit of excellence and are committed to partnering with outstanding enterprises to strive for shared success.

Zheng Can, Managing Director of Linear CapitalStatement: We believe that the numerous advantages of bioelectronics will significantly propel the development of life sciences. We look forward to Aosu Technology leveraging its unique capabilities in high-throughput, precise control and real-time observation of fine-grained samples to unlock new possibilities for cutting-edge biological experiments.

Virtus Inspire Investment Director, Deng MengIt was stated that the Ausu Technology team has accumulated profound expertise in active digital microfluidics, developed a single-cell microfluidic manipulation platform, and established collaborative partnerships with leading international research institutions. The team is currently exploring scientific collaborations with more principal investigators (PIs), with expectations for breakthroughs in broader application areas.