US-based biotechnology company Emulate raised $12m in series A funding on Monday from Los Angeles hospital Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and venture capital firm NanoDimension, which led the round.
Emulate is a spin-out of Harvard University’s Wyss Institute. The cash will be used to move the company out the incubator, where it has been housed for five years.
Funds will also be set aside for to accelerate the commercialisation of Emulate’s thumbnail-sized microchips, which the company claims can be used in preclinical drug testing as an alternative to in vitro or animal studies. The company plans to eventually branch out into cosmetic and agrochemical product testing.
Emulate has received more than $40m in grant money from the US Food and Drug Administration and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency since it was founded last year.