Sweden’s Cytely Secures €3M To Scale Its Smart Microscopy Platform

The round was led by Ugly Duckling Ventures, with continued backing from Icebreaker.vc. Cytely’s team operates from Lund, San Diego, and Singapore.

“Scientists have been constrained by workflows built for images, not data. Cytely transforms any microscope into a real-time measurement instrument, closing the loop from acquisition to decision on an experiment-day timescale rather than a grant cycle,” said Philip Nordenfelt, Cytely Co-founder & CEO. “Our goal is to make every experiment analysis-ready from creation, so discoveries stack and science compounds.”

Cytely, a Sweden-based DeepTech startup, raised €3 million in 2025 to expand its smart microscopy platform, joining a wider European trend in DeepTech and HealthTech innovation. Earlier this year, the Netherlands’ QT Sense secured €6 million for quantum-sensing diagnostics, while Germany’s Pixel Photonics received €1 million to advance photon detectors for microscopy.

Cytely’s platform converts standard lab microscopes into real-time, analysis-ready data engines, drastically speeding up traditionally slow, manual microscopy workflows. This data-centric approach supports scalable, accessible scientific discovery and reflects a growing European focus on automation, precision imaging, and research infrastructure.

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Founded in 2023 by Philip Nordenfelt, CEO, Cytely leverages his expertise in immunology and mechanobiology to overcome microscopy bottlenecks, enabling faster, statistically robust analyses. The platform is already in use at major research institutions, including Lund University, and supports studies in virology, oncology, and metabolic diseases.

“Cytely’s software is a democratising force in science. It decouples world‑class discovery from world‑class funding, empowering any researcher with a microscope to tackle the biggest challenges in human health. All microscopy will become ‘smart microscopy’; Cytely is turning the ‘wild west’ of possibility into a powerful, accessible platform that will accelerate discovery for researchers everywhere,” said Dr Vinay Swaminathan, Head of the Laboratory of Cell & Molecular Mechanobiology at Lund University.

Traditional microscopy relies on static images requiring weeks of manual cell assessment and often lacking statistical confidence. Cytely shifts the focus from pictures to data, automating image capture, quantifying full samples, and delivering standardized, reproducible, analysis-ready results in real time. Its hardware-agnostic platform works with most modern microscopes, avoiding costly specialized equipment.

“Finally, we feel like this project is actually working… We’re collecting large‑scale data and unraveling mechanisms of viral latency, something that just wasn’t possible before,” said Prof. Alex Evilevitch.

A case from Lund University highlights Cytely’s transformative impact: researchers studying herpesvirus latency previously processed only 0.1% of their samples manually. With Cytely they analyzed nearly 100% of their data uncovering a previously hidden cell-line defence mechanism. This breakthrough allowed them to redesign their protocol and achieve more in one month than in the prior five years.

Cytely isn’t just transforming academia it’s making a real difference in industry too. One cancer research lab slashed manual analysis by 75%, saving about €300k a year and essentially doubling their team’s productivity. A nanowire biotech company increased R&D output by 40%, creating an estimated $1 million in extra annual value. Another lab even replaced a €400k high-throughput imaging system entirely, using Cytely with the microscopes they already had.

The platform’s new funding will accelerate the development of intelligent acquisition tools compatible with all microscope brands and one-click workflows for researchers of any skill level. These upgrades aim to create a fully integrated discovery network, enabling validated protocols and datasets to be shared, replayed, and iterated paving the way for predictive analysis and partially autonomous research.

“Their vision is truly transformative. We’re thrilled to lead this round and support the mission to make smart, data‑centric microscopy accessible to every lab,” said Louise Lachmann, Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures.