In January 2026, the Dresden-based MedTech startup Cancilico secured €2.5 million ($2.7M) in a Seed funding round. The investment was led by a consortium including High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), TGFS – Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, GEDAD GmbH, and ROI Verwaltungsgesellschaft.
The company is led by Co-Founder and CEO Markus Badstübner and CMO Dr. Moritz Middeke. Founded as a spin-off from the University Hospital Dresden, Cancilico is developing “MyeloAID,” an AI-driven software platform that automates the classification and counting of cells in bone marrow smears to accelerate the diagnosis of leukemia and other hematological cancers.
Bone marrow analysis remains one of the most labor-intensive disciplines in hematology, suffering from a critical global shortage of specialists. MyeloAID addresses this by training on diverse datasets of both pathological and healthy samples to provide expert-level analysis in minutes. This shift toward high-fidelity “Digital Colleagues” mirrors the deployment of AI-leveraged therapy agents in other specialized medical fields.
The new capital will be used to achieve regulatory approvals (FDA and CE-IVDR) and integrate MyeloAID into existing laboratory infrastructures worldwide. By enforcing high-precision diagnostic logic, Cancilico provides a level of clinical integrity similar to AI-native logic enforcement layers, ensuring that machine-assisted findings are as reliable as human peer reviews.
Market Signal
- The “Democratization of Expertise” Alpha: Cancilico’s €2.5M round validates that the future of oncology lies in “Expert-as-a-Service.” By lowering the capital expenditure required for expert-level diagnostics, the company is enabling local clinics to deliver a standard of care previously reserved for Tier-1 research hospitals.
- Strategic Research-to-Market Pipeline: Rooted in the Saxon life sciences ecosystem, Cancilico’s connection to Biosaxony and the SEMECO cluster provides a rapid translation pathway. This institutional backing is why HTGF led the round, betting on a “Research-Use-Only” model that has already demonstrated significant commercial traction.
- Labor Displacement via Enhancement: In a market where diagnostic complexity is rising faster than the workforce, AI is no longer optional. This “Digital Employee” model for pathologists is consistent with the shift toward AI super employees across high-stakes service sectors.
Key Details
- Company: Cancilico (Cancilico GmbH)
- Funding: €2.5M Seed
- Headquarters: Dresden, Germany
- Lead Investor: High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF)
- CEO: Markus Badstübner
- Use Case: AI-powered bone marrow diagnostics, automated cell classification, and precision hematology
