Oncobit secures CHF 2.3 million seed financing round

GF Group Holding AG and AVANTECA Partners AG are among the family offices and private investors that participated in Oncobit’s seed round to support its mission of enabling more personalized care for patients suffering from cancer. The funds will flow into growing its team and preparing for market launch.

Oncobit is a MedTech spin-off from the University of Zurich with a team of nine employees who are dedicated to developing precision diagnostic and monitoring assays for personalized cancer care. Oncobit’s products aim at providing a detailed understanding of genomic cancer alterations throughout the patient’s history. Highly sensitive diagnostic and monitoring tools allow Oncobit to deliver the most appropriate treatment selections and to help physicians improve the treatment options they provide to their patients. Oncobit is addressing the rapidly expanding market of precision oncology and personalized disease monitoring using non-invasive technologies. The company’s current focus lies on melanoma, however, Oncobit’s approach is data-centric, modular, and expandable to other cancer types in the near future.

New members on the board
In line with the investment round, a new Board of Directors has been elected. Previous board members and co-founders Stefan Bleuler and Tomas Hruz were joined by Christian Schilling, former senior pharma executive and managing partner of AVANTECA Partners AG, and diagnostic expert Daniel Schöner as an independent board member. The board will be led by the newly elected President of the Board, Ruedi Gygax, who, as former Managing Director at the Novartis Venture Fund contributes essential experience in building and growing HealthCare Startups. 

CEO Claudia Scheckel, on closing the seed financing round, says “I couldn’t be more thrilled about our new investors and board members. Every one of them shares our vision of empowering personalized cancer care and brings in complementary industry experience to put Oncobit at the forefront of precision medicine. I am very much looking forward to taking Oncobit to the next level together.”