DeepEn GmbH, a pio­neer in holo­graphic endoscopy, has suc­cess­fully closed a seven-digit seed financ­ing round with investors bm|t, MBG Thürin­gen and Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Hol­z­land. This invest­ment will accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the world’s thinnest microscopy instru­ments, which will open up new pos­si­bil­i­ties for neu­ro­science and bio­med­ical research. 

In addi­tion, the NEUROGATE project, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the start-up and three Euro­pean research insti­tutes, received fund­ing of 2.5 mil­lion euros from the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil (EIC) Tran­si­tion Pro­gram in Jan­u­ary 2025. Together, the con­sor­tium aims to fur­ther develop the min­i­mally inva­sive tech­nol­ogy for a vari­ety of new applications. 

Investment in neurophotonics innovation 

Deep­En’s endo­scopes use advanced algo­rithms and holo­graphic tech­niques to pre­cisely con­trol laser light as it passes through a sin­gle opti­cal fiber. Once the fiber is inserted into an organ such as the brain, it can focus the light beam to a clean focal point, enabling laser scan­ning microscopy in pre­vi­ously inac­ces­si­ble deep tis­sue regions. The inno­v­a­tive tech­nol­ogy was hon­ored with the Euro­pean Microscopy Soci­ety’s Life Sci­ences Award 2024. 

Pro­to­types of these microscopy devices have already been used to image neu­rons and can­cer cells in ani­mal mod­els. With the invest­ment, the DeepEn team, led by CEO Dr. Sergey Tur­taev, plans to launch its first prod­uct, the Neu­roDeep® in vivo microscopy sys­tem, as well as develop the next gen­er­a­tion of holo­graphic endo­scope tech­nol­ogy for even more advanced applications. 

With bm|t, MBG Thürin­gen and Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Hol­z­land, DeepEn has gained three expe­ri­enced investors with valu­able exper­tise in the opti­cal ecosys­tem of Cen­tral Ger­many. “We warmly wel­come our new investors and thank them for their con­fi­dence in our team and our tech­nol­ogy,” says Tur­taev. “Together, we are pur­su­ing our vision of enabling inno­v­a­tive diag­nos­tic and ther­a­peu­tic approaches for neu­ronal dis­eases through our pow­er­ful imag­ing tools.” 

Successful transfer of cutting-edge research 

The foun­da­tions of holo­graphic endoscopy were devel­oped from 2011 onwards by Prof. Dr. Tomas Čižmár, a later co-founder of DeepEn, at the Uni­ver­sity of St. Andrews and the Uni­ver­sity of Dundee in Scot­land. In 2016, Sergey Tur­taev joined the research group dur­ing his doc­tor­ate. In 2017, the sci­en­tists moved to the Leib­niz Insti­tute of Pho­tonic Tech­nol­ogy (Leib­niz IPHT) in Jena, where they con­tin­ued their work as part of the pres­ti­gious ERC Con­sol­ida­tor Grant LIFEGATE. 

Com­mer­cial­iza­tion began in 2020 through the EXIST pro­gram for research trans­fer fund­ing from the Ger­man Fed­eral Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics and Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion, which led to the spin-off of DeepEn GmbH in early 2024. “This com­pany is a prime exam­ple of how top-class research, which has led to out­stand­ing pub­li­ca­tions, is quickly turned into a mar­ketable prod­uct,” says Prof. Dr. Jür­gen Popp, Sci­en­tific Direc­tor of Leib­niz IPHT. “The team’s speed and ded­i­ca­tion are impressive.” 

DeepEn was one of the 25 win­ners of the Falling Walls Ven­ture Cup in fall 2024 and received the Thuringian Inno­va­tion Award for young companies.

European cooperation for technology transfer 

The poten­tial of holo­graphic endoscopy has also been rec­og­nized in Brus­sels. In Jan­u­ary 2025, the NEUROGATE coop­er­a­tion project received fund­ing of 2.5 mil­lion euros from the Euro­pean Inno­va­tion Coun­cil (EIC) Tran­si­tion as part of Hori­zon Europe. “With this project, we are trans­form­ing the lat­est sci­en­tific dis­cov­er­ies into valu­able solu­tions for users. In this way, we enable pre­cise mon­i­tor­ing of neu­ronal activ­ity under nat­ural con­di­tions with unprece­dented accu­racy,” says Prof. Čižmár. 

In addi­tion to Leib­niz IPHT and DeepEn, two inter­na­tional part­ners are involved in NEUROGATE: the Insti­tute of Sci­en­tific Instru­ments (ISI) of the Czech Acad­emy of Sci­ences in Brno and Neuro-Elec­tron­ics Research Flan­ders (NERF) in Bel­gium. The inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research cen­ter for neu­rotech­nol­ogy is sup­ported by imec, the Life Sci­ences Insti­tute VIB and the KU Leu­ven. “We look for­ward to con­tribut­ing our exper­tise to the fur­ther devel­op­ment of neu­rotech­no­log­i­cal appli­ca­tions in order to bet­ter under­stand the brain and develop new ther­a­peu­tic strate­gies for neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases,” says Sebas­t­ian Haesler from NERF. 

The investors

About bm|t: bm|t, based in Erfurt, is the lead­ing address for cor­po­rate invest­ments in Thuringia. bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of around 445 mil­lion euros, which invest in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in almost all sec­tors and devel­op­ment phases — whether in the start-up and growth phase or for com­pany suc­ces­sions. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found at: www.bm‑t.de

About Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Hol­z­land: Sparkasse Jena-Saale-Hol­z­land has been rooted in the region since 1828 and offers finan­cial ser­vices, advice and fund­ing for com­pa­nies and com­mu­ni­ties. As the largest regional finan­cial part­ner, it improves the qual­ity of life through dig­i­tal­iza­tion, financ­ing and pub­lic pro­grams. The Sparkasse actively sup­ports the econ­omy, edu­ca­tion, sport and cul­ture in the region. It pro­motes inno­va­tion by sup­port­ing start-ups such as DeepEn GmbH and, together with the Busi­ness Angels Club Jena e.V., has cre­ated a plat­form that con­nects start-ups with pri­vate investors in order to strengthen the regional start-up ecosys­tem. More infor­ma­tion: www.s‑jena.de

About MBG Thürin­gen: Mit­tel­ständis­che Beteili­gungs­ge­sellschaft Thürin­gen mbH (MBG Thürin­gen) is a strong and reli­able part­ner for small and medium-sized enter­prises. It offers mez­za­nine and equity invest­ments to strengthen the equity base of com­pa­nies for start-up, con­sol­i­da­tion or suc­ces­sion plan­ning. This gives com­pa­nies a solid basis for sus­tain­able growth. More infor­ma­tion: www.mbg-thueringen.de