Led by Spring Mountain Capital, the round also includes Yale University.

IsoPlexis, a spin-out of Yale University, has secured $1.3m in a venture round led by Spring Mountain Capital. The round also included Yale University, the YEI Innovation Fund – an early-stage fund managed by the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute – Connecticut Innovations and North Sound Ventures. According to the company’s Form D filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), IsoPlexis is aiming to raise a total of $1.65m before closing the round.

IsoPlexis is based on research by Rong Fan, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, and is developing a single cell immunoassay. Immunoassay is a biochemical test that measures the presence or concentration of a macromolecule (usually a protein) in a solution through the use of an antibody. Combined with the company’s software, this provides in-depth understanding of immune cells and cancer cells. The technology is patented, and Fan received a 2014 National Science Foundation Career Award for his work.

The company is run by alumnus Sean Mackay, a 2014 graduate of the Yale School of Management. He met Fan through the Technology Commercialisation Programme, run by YEI and the Office of Cooperative Research, which connects professional and graduate school students with patented faculty inventions to launch companies.

The company currently counts five employees, having grown through a 2013 Fellowship at YEI – a ten-week summer incubator at Yale for promising startups. It secured YEI’s part of the round – $100,000 – in June, when it announced it would use the money to establish lab facilities, advance development of its product and attracting cancer research hospitals, pharmaceutical research groups and academic institutions as customers.

Sean Mackay, chief executive and co-founder at IsoPlexis, said: “The potential applications are very broad. We are entering the era of cellular medicine. By expanding the ability to detect cellular activity, we offer researchers the ability to ask questions they could not before. How do complex diseases and therapies impact patients broadly at the cellular level? We are excited to help them find the answers.”