Micrima said today it raised $3.4 million (UK £2.6 million) in a new round of financing to support its Maria breast imaging system, with commercialization slated for the end of the year.
Micrima’s Maria radiowave breast imaging system won CE Mark approval in the European Union in 2015, and the company said it is making “excellent progress” on a next-generation version of the system, hoping to release it early next year.
“Breast cancer is the most common cause of death in women between the ages of 35 and 55 in Europe and the leading cause of death for women in many countries. The problem is that many tumours are not discovered early enough, largely due to the difficulty in discriminating between cancers and dense tissue using current imaging technology. Using harmless radiowaves, the Maria imaging system is capable of detecting tumours in dense tissue and allows routine and repeated scanning without any of the safety or comfort concerns associated with X-ray mammography. The process takes less than 5 minutes and avoids painful breast compression,” Micrima exec chair Roy Johnson said in a press release.
Joining the round were previous investors Technology Venture Partners, Swarraton Partners and the Angel CoFund, with new investor University of Bristol Enterprise Fund, the company said. The round was also joined by individual investors, 50% of which invested through the Venture Founders platform.
“We originally invested in Micrima because we knew we’d found an extremely capable team working with some very interesting technology in a sector with considerable opportunity for innovation. The team has really delivered on our expectation in the last couple of years and we’re very happy to be supporting them again through this next phase of development,” Angel CoFund investment director Tim Mills said in prepared remarks.