Samplix announces financing led by WLanholding GmbH (WLan) to expand commercial adoption of Xdrop, its single-cell screening platform that helps researchers identify and recover cells producing antibodies with the desired biological function.
The financing strengthens Samplix’s balance sheet and supports the commercial expansion of Xdrop for antibody discovery and biotherapeutic development.
All major shareholders participated in the first closing. The round remains open to additional investors, with a total financing target of €30 million.
Bringing function-first screening to antibody discovery: Samplix’s proprietary Xdrop platform addresses long-standing bottlenecks in antibody discovery by enabling high-throughput, function-first screening against challenging targets, including membrane-bound proteins and complex assay formats such as reporter-based assays.
The platform enables researchers to screen, identify and recover cells producing antibodies with the desired function, creating a direct link between antibody function, the antibody-secreting cell and the corresponding antibody sequence.
This approach has the potential to accelerate the discovery of next-generation antibody-based therapeutics.
"This investment is a further validation of the value our Xdrop platform brings to the antibody discovery community," said Dr Henrik Pfundheller, CEO of Samplix.
"We are now in a strong position to further scale our platform, deepen our partnerships with biopharma and academia, and continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible in single-cell workflows. This is an important milestone in our mission to make drug discovery faster, simpler and more reliable."
WLan's investment reflects the growing confidence in Samplix's technology and its potential to reshape how antibody discovery is performed at scale.
As part of the investment, Dr Werner Lanthaler, former CEO of Evotec, will join Samplix's Board of Directors within the next year, working closely with the management team to guide the company's next phase of growth.
"We are excited to partner with Samplix at this pivotal stage of its growth," said Dr Lanthaler, founder and Managing Director of WLan.
"The team has built a differentiated single-cell technology platform that solves real, persistent challenges in drug discovery. We believe Samplix is well positioned to become a category leader ... and we look forward to supporting the team as they scale their impact across the industry."
