Annaida Technologies moves to commercial stage with pre-Series A backing

Annaida Technologies, a deep tech spin-off from EPFL, has closed an oversubscribed pre-Series A funding round led by HEMEX in April 2025. The company is commercialising a miniaturised form of magnetic resonance spectroscopy that it calls micro-MRS and plans to bring a product, EmbryoSpin, to early customers in fertility clinics and life science research. Public innovation instruments including the European Innovation Council Transition support through the HYPERCELL project and Swiss Innosuisse grants have helped the company de-risk the technology on its route from lab prototypes to marketable instruments.

What Annaida claims to have built

These capabilities, if validated independently at scale, would be novel because standard MRS systems are optimised for larger samples or in vivo human imaging. Microcoils and micro-NMR techniques have been explored in academic settings for years. Annaida's contribution appears to be packaging a micro-MRS sensor with a microchip into a compact device targeted at life science and fertility workflows. Independent peer reviewed publications and open technical details will be important to establish sensitivity, throughput and limits of detection compared with competing analytical methods.

Funding, investors and public support

Annaida announced closure of an oversubscribed pre-Series A round in April 2025, led by HEMEX. Existing investors that participated include Zürcher Kantonalbank, Excellis, EFI Lake Geneva Ventures and members of Club degli Investitori through Simon Fiduciaria. The company also lists earlier support from the EIC Accelerator and Innosuisse, including a Swiss Innovation Project grant. The EIC Transition HYPERCELL project is explicitly named as helping move the technology toward a benchtop product.

The company and the EIC announcement did not disclose the total amount raised in this pre-Series A. 'Oversubscribed' signals investor demand but does not replace transparency on the round size. That number matters for assessing runway and the scale of manufacturing and clinical studies the company can finance before a larger Series A.

Claims, early traction and what to watch for

Annaida presents several claims and ambitions that are typical for deep tech spin-outs moving toward commercialisation. The company highlights early research customer revenue and deployment at academic labs. It projects use cases in embryo assessment for assisted reproductive therapies where it claims micro-MRS could improve embryo selection and reduce miscarriages. Investors and the CEO emphasise clinical potential and milestone delivery as reasons for continued support.

These claims should be scrutinised through independent evidence. For fertility clinics, non-invasive embryo assessment is a crowded and highly regulated space. Demonstrating an improvement in live birth rates or reduction in miscarriage requires prospective clinical studies with sufficient statistical power. Regulatory approvals such as CE marking in the EU or equivalent clearance elsewhere will hinge on such clinical validation and on showing the device fits into IVF clinic workflows without adding unacceptable complexity or risk.

Technical and market hurdles

Key challenges Annaida will face include demonstrating the necessary sensitivity and reproducibility at the micro scale, ensuring measurement speed and sample throughput meet clinical needs, and integrating the device with magnets that may be costly or bulky. Other obstacles include manufacturing scale up for the microchip sensor, building a sales and support organisation for both research and clinical customers, protecting and enforcing intellectual property, and competing with existing embryo assessment approaches that use imaging, time-lapse incubators, metabolomics, or genetic testing.

From a funding perspective, a pre-Series A typically funds prototype refinement, early regulatory work and pilot clinical validation. The next major step will usually require a larger Series A or strategic partnership to finance multi-centre clinical trials and build production capacity.

EIC Transition and the EU innovation context

Annaida combines EIC Transition support with Swiss national backing from Innosuisse and private capital. That mixed financing profile is typical for European deep tech ventures and can de-risk early-stage development. EPFL as a technology source also helps with talent and IP. Still, the road from EIC-funded validation to widely adopted clinical tools involves additional regulatory and commercial investment beyond what transition grants usually cover.

Outlook and next steps

Annaida now faces a familiar sequence of tasks. Technically it must translate lab demonstrations into robust, repeatable instruments that operate reliably in customer environments. Clinically it must run validation studies to support regulatory filings and adoption by fertility clinics. Commercially it must price and package a magnet-dependent product in a way that fits existing workflows or reduce dependence on dedicated magnets. Financially it will need further funding to scale manufacturing and clinical studies unless it secures strategic partnerships with larger players in fertility diagnostics or imaging.

For observers and potential customers the signals to watch are independent peer reviewed publications benchmarking micro-MRS performance, details of clinical pilots or trials and the commercial terms under which EmbryoSpin will be deployed. Investors and public funders will be looking for hard evidence that the technology can change clinical decisions and outcomes or deliver sufficiently valuable data in drug discovery and tox testing to justify adoption.

Where to find primary sources

The EIC Community posted a success story on 21 July 2025 summarising Annaida's pre-Series A and EIC Transition involvement. The company issued a press release on 29 April 2025 and maintains product, patent and grant information on its website. The EIC Transition project HYPERCELL is recorded in the Horizon Europe database for further technical and administrative details.

This article is based on those public materials and independent context about technology commercialisation in the European innovation ecosystem. Readers should treat company claims as early-stage and look for independent validation and regulatory milestones before drawing conclusions about clinical impact.