bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH, together with Robert Bosch Ven­tures, LBBW Ven­tures, and a pri­vate busi­ness angel, has invested in Applyo Jena GmbH as part of a Series A financ­ing round. The fund­ing will sup­port the com­pa­ny’s con­tin­ued expan­sion in the mol­e­c­u­lar diag­nos­tics sec­tor and ini­ti­ate prod­uct devel­op­ment for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal applications.

Founded in 2021 and based in Jena, Applyo has devel­oped a unique and patented tech­nol­ogy for the lyophiliza­tion of reagent mix­tures into so-called ‘beads’—miniature freeze-dried spheres that pre­serve even highly active com­po­nents such as enzymes in an active state. Upon dis­so­lu­tion, these com­po­nents are fully reac­ti­vated. Applyo’s inno­va­tion addresses a crit­i­cal chal­lenge in the rapidly grow­ing point-of-care (POC) diag­nos­tics mar­ket: con­ven­tional POC tests often depend on sen­si­tive bio­log­i­cal reagents that require con­tin­u­ous refrig­er­a­tion and typ­i­cally have a shelf life of only three to six months. By elim­i­nat­ing the need for a cold chain and sig­nif­i­cantly extend­ing prod­uct shelf life, Applyo’s tech­nol­ogy has the poten­tial to trans­form the industry.

The point-of-care diag­nos­tics mar­ket has expe­ri­enced sub­stan­tial growth, a trend accel­er­ated by the COVID-19 pan­demic, which drove diag­nos­tic test­ing closer to the patient, includ­ing in emer­gency rooms. In par­al­lel, the global freeze-dry­ing mar­ket for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech prod­ucts reached a value of USD 6 bil­lion in 2023 and is pro­jected to grow at a rate of 8% annu­ally through 2028.

Applyo suc­cess­fully com­pleted the devel­op­ment of its tech­nol­ogy and began com­mer­cial sales in mid-2023. The com­pany has already secured major cus­tomers and is in advanced nego­ti­a­tions with lead­ing indus­try dis­trib­u­tors. Fur­ther­more, Applyo has estab­lished a highly effi­cient and scal­able pro­duc­tion process, while main­tain­ing a bead qual­ity that is unbeat(d)able com­pared to cur­rent indus­try standards.

While in a first clos­ing at the end of 2024, Robert Bosch Ven­ture Cap­i­tal and LBBW Ven­ture Cap­i­tal invested into Applyo, bm|t com­pleted the Series A financ­ing round in a sec­ond clos­ing, along­side a pri­vate busi­ness angel. The invest­ment will pri­mar­ily fuel Applyo’s growth in the diag­nos­tics mar­ket and sup­port the com­pa­ny’s entry into the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sector.

Dr. Ingo Rame­sohl, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Bosch Ven­tures, com­mented: “Applyo’s pio­neer­ing approach opens up excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for point-of-care sys­tem providers to trans­port and store sen­si­tive reagents and enzymes with­out the need for con­tin­u­ous cold chains—enabling more sus­tain­able sup­ply chains.”

Katja Butz­mann, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of bm|t, added: “With Applyo, we are invest­ing in a com­pany with an out­stand­ing tech­no­log­i­cal edge and sig­nif­i­cant growth poten­tial.  The found­ing team, with deep exper­tise in mol­e­c­u­lar biol­ogy and prior expe­ri­ence at indus­try lead­ers such as Alere and Abbott, brings exten­sive know-how and a strong track record in devel­op­ing and com­mer­cial­iz­ing diag­nos­tic tech­nolo­gies. With its inno­v­a­tive approach and strong indus­try part­ner­ships, Applyo is posi­tioned to rev­o­lu­tion­ize point-of-care diag­nos­tics and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing. At the same time, Applyo strength­ens the inno­va­tion ecosys­tem in Thuringia, par­tic­u­larly in the Jena region.”

About Applyo Jena GmbH

Applyo Jena GmbH spe­cial­izes in the lyophiliza­tion of bio­log­i­cal reagents into con­t­a­m­i­na­tion-free beads, offer­ing solu­tions that elim­i­nate the need for a cold chain and extend the shelf life of diag­nos­tic and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts. With its inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­ogy and strong indus­try part­ner­ships, Applyo is posi­tioned to rev­o­lu­tion­ize point-of-care diag­nos­tics and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing.​ Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.applyo-jena.com

About the Investors

bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH (bm|t), based in Erfurt, is the lead­ing ven­ture cap­i­tal and pri­vate equity firm in Thuringia. bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of approx­i­mately EUR 445 mil­lion, invest­ing in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies across nearly all sec­tors and stages of cor­po­rate development—from start-up and growth phases to suc­ces­sion sit­u­a­tions. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.bm‑t.de​

Robert Bosch Ven­ture Cap­i­tal (RBVC), known as Bosch Ven­tures, is the cor­po­rate ven­ture cap­i­tal com­pany of the Bosch Group. Since its found­ing in 2007, RBVC has invested glob­ally in inno­v­a­tive start-ups across all stages of devel­op­ment, focus­ing on tech­nolo­gies in the fields of automa­tion, elec­tri­fi­ca­tion, cli­mate, and health tech.​ Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.bosch.ventures

LBBW Ven­ture Cap­i­tal (LBBW VC) is an inde­pen­dent sub­sidiary of Lan­des­bank Baden-Würt­tem­berg, founded in 1998. LBBW VC invests in early-stage, dis­rup­tive IT and life sci­ence com­pa­nies across the DACH region, with a focus on seed and Series A financ­ing rounds. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.lbbwvc.de