Nimble Science closes $2M USD seed round

Calgary-based ​Nimble Science, a digital health company, has raised a USD $2-million seed round to continue to grow its to grow its SIMBA GI Health platform.

“This funding brings Nimble Science out of stealth mode to enable academia, government and industry to unlock critical health data insights in the previously out-of-reach small intestine,” said the company in a news release.

Over 15 chronic diseases are associated with dysbiosis of the small intestine, representing a $75-billion total addressable market. Nimble Science’s consumer-friendly SIMBA capsule finally enables small intestine multi-omic microbiome data collection to empower novel consumer product, therapeutic, and diagnostic development.

Dr. Sabina Bruehlmann, Nimble’s CEO, said the time is now for its SIMBA product to revolutionize the field by providing access to this novel dataset.

“The introduction of endoscopy-quality liquid biopsies collected from large cohorts within the home is a game changer for understanding, monitoring and treating a variety of gut-related conditions,” she said in a statement.

The company said funds will be used to advance the SIMBA GI Health diagnostic test platform, grow commercial research partnerships spanning consumer products, academia, government and drug companies, as well as expand Nimble Science’s team.

Nimble said its SIMBA capsule has been clinically validated to collect an uncontaminated sample from the deepest and previously inaccessible regions of the small intestine—housing one of the most bioactive and critical microbial environments.

“The microbiome and metabolomic profiles we see in the small intestine through SIMBA are significantly different from what we have seen in the feces and are comparable to endoscopy. Reliance on fecal samples has provided us with only half of the picture,” said Nimble CTO Dr. Joseph Wang, in a statement.

Fusion Fund of Palo Alto, California led the oversubscribed financing round, which included new investors First Spark Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Joyance Partners, Adara VC and Startup TNT and TNT Capital, with follow-on funding from pre-seed partners including BoxOne Ventures, Threshold Impact, BlueSky Equities, UCeed Child Health and Wellness Fund, and angels.

“From our deep research in the digital GI space, it quickly became clear that there is a critical gap in the diagnosis and treatment of many complex diseases due to a lack of understanding the link between the microbiome and human health,” said Ivneet Bhullar, principal at Fusion Fund, in a statement.

“We are excited to back Nimble as it seeks to leverage its novel technology to generate first-in-class datasets that will illuminate the small intestinal microbiome and unlock the development of a new category of microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics.”