Breath diagnostic specialist Avelo closes CHF 2.2m round

Avelo, a breath diagnostics company with a mission to make every breath count for better infectious disease diagnosis, has closed a CHF 2.2 million seed round. 

The seed financing round was led by OCCIDENT, with participation from Privilège Ventures, Arve Capital, Zürcher Kantonalbank and several MedTech angel investors.

Diagnosing tuberculosis and lower respiratory tract infections causing pneumonia, the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, is neither easy nor reliable. Avelo’s breath collector is used by doctors to painlessly collect a patient’s breath sample from the respiratory tract and analyse it with existing PCR tests. 

Tobias Broger, chief technology officer and co-founder of Avelo, said: “Our innovation is a novel breath sampling technology that contains a functional nanofibre filter. This filter combines the collection of human breath aerosols that contain infectious pathogens from the respiratory tract with a quick and efficient release of these pathogens for subsequent detection. It is compatible with a variety of molecular tests and laboratory workflows, is affordable and scalable, and enables breath biobanking for the first time.”

Avelo will use the seed funding to drive product development, clinical validation studies as well as business development activities for successful market entry. 

Melanie Aregger, CEO & co-founder, said: “We are very happy about our investor consortium. They not only bring in financial resources but also, and more importantly, long-standing industry experience. Their business networks and scale-up expertise will accelerate our journey to make AveloCollect available for better diagnosis of respiratory infections and ultimately to save lives.”

Cédric Barra, senior investment manager for the life sciences sector at OCCIDENT, added: "We are very excited to welcome Avelo to our portfolio. The combination of a non-invasive sampling method and the existing lab infrastructure provides a lot of potential and serves the needs of the patients and the industry perfectly.”