MONTREAL — DropGenie, a biotechnology company developing tools to generate biological research data from patient-derived cells, has secured $5 million in Seed+ financing to expand its functional biology platform and accelerate commercialization of its gene editing technology.
The funding round included investments from BDC Thrive Venture Fund and Skeleton Key, with participation from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, CQDM, Real Ventures and Anges Quebec.
The company plans to use the financing to expand access to its technology among pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and research organizations while developing partnerships focused on generating standardized biological datasets for drug discovery.
DropGenie’s technology is designed to enable researchers to conduct gene editing experiments directly in primary human cells obtained from patients, potentially providing more relevant insights into disease biology and drug responses.
Its platform miniaturizes gene editing workflows, allowing researchers to achieve efficient genetic modifications while using up to 100 times fewer cells and substantially smaller quantities of laboratory reagents than conventional methods, according to the company.
The approach could help address a major challenge in biomedical research: the limited availability of patient-derived cells for large-scale experiments.
DropGenie said its first commercial product is already being integrated into research workflows at major pharmaceutical, biotechnology and scientific research organizations worldwide.
The company is also expanding its business model to allow customers to use its protocols in their own laboratories, commission research studies directly through DropGenie or establish strategic partnerships to develop functional biological datasets.
“Primary human cells hold the answers drug developers need, but they’ve been too scarce to study at scale,” said Alison Hirukawa, co-founder and CEO of DropGenie.
“We make those experiments practical, and BDC Thrive Fund helps us bring that to more teams, faster,” Hirukawa added.
The investment from BDC Thrive Venture Fund brings additional financial and strategic support as DropGenie expands its commercial operations.
The $350 million Thrive Venture Fund, operated by the Business Development Bank of Canada, focuses on investing in women-led Canadian technology companies from the pre-seed stage through Series B financing.
As part of the investment, BDC Thrive will also gain representation on DropGenie’s board.
“DropGenie is building critical infrastructure for the future of drug discovery by making high-quality, human-relevant biological data more accessible and scalable,” said Mona Minhas, managing partner of BDC Thrive Venture Fund.
“We see an opportunity to build a globally important company from Canada, and Alison has the scientific depth, ambition and vision to lead it. We’re proud to back her and the DropGenie team as they scale globally,” Minhas added.
The company is positioning its platform as a tool for improving drug discovery by enabling researchers to generate more reliable experimental data from human cells.
Such datasets could also support the development of artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery systems, which depend on high-quality biological information to identify potential treatments and predict therapeutic responses.
Ann Lai, managing partner of Skeleton Key, said DropGenie’s approach could help accelerate scientific discovery while supporting future applications of artificial intelligence in biotechnology.
“We look for science companies that are accelerating discovery with innovative technology and DropGenie is doing just that by generating reliable experimentation data to enable the adaptation of AI-assisted innovation in the future,” Lai said.
“We’re excited to have BDC Thrive Fund join the Board and show support for a homegrown deep-tech company,” she added.
DropGenie said the new capital will support its efforts to scale commercial operations, strengthen relationships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers, and expand partnerships focused on generating functional biological data from patient-derived cells.
