UK-based diagnostics company Salient Bio has closed a £2.35 million seed funding round led by THENA Capital to support the commercial launch of its microbiome-based diagnostic test for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The company plans to use its proprietary SIGNAL platform to accelerate research into conditions that disproportionately affect women.
Founded in 2020 by Marta Ciechonska and Miles Priestman, Salient Bio’s SIGNAL platform uses automation, microbiome data analysis, and machine learning to generate disease signatures for non-invasive, at-home testing solutions. The IBD diagnostic test aims to accelerate diagnosis and distinguish between IBD and conditions with similar symptoms, potentially reducing unnecessary colonoscopies.
IBD currently requires an average of 12 months for initial diagnosis, during which patients often experience debilitating symptoms. Early diagnosis enables timely treatment intervention that can prevent irreversible damage and improve quality of life.
The funding round included participation from strategic investors and EIS fund Vanneck alongside lead investor THENA Capital, a UK-based medtech fund. “Salient Bio has demonstrated remarkable traction in delivering precision diagnostics at scale, with standout innovation in microbiome biomarkers and novel women’s health solutions,” said Dr. Pamela Walker Geddes, General Partner at THENA Capital. “Their platform unlocks the potential to make advanced diagnostics radically more accessible for consumers, patients, clinicians, payers, and pharma.”
The company operates an ISO 17025 accredited testing and prototyping laboratory in London, specializing in microbiome analysis, process standardization, automation, and machine learning-based data analysis.
Salient Bio’s strategic focus on women’s health conditions addresses a significant gap in diagnostic solutions for diseases that disproportionately affect women. The SIGNAL platform’s ability to identify disease signatures through microbiome analysis could provide new diagnostic approaches for conditions that are often difficult to diagnose.
“This funding round proves instrumental in delivering our non-invasive IBD diagnostic test to patients quickly and continuing our collective efforts to build accessible testing solutions,” said Marta Ciechonska, co-founder of Salient Bio.
