🇸🇪 CubaseBio emerges from stealth to scale true 3D spatial transcriptomics with €5.9 million in financing

Stockholm, Sweden, February 17, 2026 – CubaseBio, a biotechnology company founded by pioneers in spatial biology, today announced it has secured €5.9 million in blended financing. The funding comprises a €2 million non-dilutive grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Transition program and €3.9 million in private capital and convertibles from Voima Ventures, Nordic Science Investments (NSI), Illumina Ventures, Almi Invest, Life Science Invest and several undisclosed private investors from the genomics technology space. Voima and NSI, two Nordic-based deeptech and life science investors, served as the lead investors.

The funding will be used to accelerate the technology development and commercialization of the company’s next-generation spatial transcriptomic technology. Unlike conventional 2D spatial techniques, which are limited to thin tissue sections, CubaseBio’s technology enables true three-dimensional analysis at scale. This technology provides researchers with unprecedented insights into complex 3D tissue structures.

CubaseBio was founded in 2024 by Malte Kuhnemund, Xiaoyan Qian, Toon Verheyen and Paulius Mielinis. Amongst the scientific advisory co-founders are Joshua Weinstein (assistant professor of molecular engineering at UChicago) and Björn Högberg (professor and head of the department Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden). Both pioneered DNA microscopy, a spatial biology method that builds molecular networks inside intact specimens to encode three-dimensional proximity between transcripts. These networks are read out by DNA sequencing to produce a proximity matrix, from which a 3D image of gene expression is computationally reconstructed—capturing both relative spatial coordinates and nucleotide-level sequence information in a single measurement.

CubaseBio’s technology is based on the grounds built by Weinstein (UChicago) and researchers at the Karolinska Institute and KTH, Sweden—amongst Björn Högberg and Ian Hoffecker. Högberg’s pioneering work formed the basis for the EIC Transition grant “Spatial Fuseseq” awarded to CubaseBio. Kuhnemund, Ph.D., and Qian, Ph.D., are seasoned spatial biology pioneers and former co-founders of CARTANA, a Scilifelab spinout that pioneered in situ sequencing, which was acquired by 10X Genomics in 2020 to form the foundation of the Xenium In Situ platform.

Kuhnemund (CEO) commented:

“Biology is 3 dimensional. We want to enable measuring it in that way. We are thrilled to be backed by strong life science tech investors and the European innovation council that awarded our company for the high scalability and disruptiveness of our technology.”

Prof. Weinstein, who is going to present his work on volumetric DNA microscopy at the upcoming AGBT meeting in Orlando, said:

“CubaseBio’s DNA microscopy technique offers a scalable route to spatial-transcriptomic analysis of complex 3 dimensional biological samples such as organoids and whole organisms.”

The EIC Transition is a highly selective funding programme under Horizon Europe, designed to support the maturation and validation of novel technologies from the lab to market application. CubaseBio was selected as one of 40 projects from a record 611 submissions across 17 countries.

About CubaseBio

CubaseBio is a Stockholm-based spatial biology company, founded by innovators in genomics and technology to build tools that reveal biology in three dimensions. Our solution enables true 3D spatial analysis at scale and resolution for drug discovery and disease research, revealing the high-dimensional interactions that occur in complex biological environments.

Originally published on 17 February 2026 by CubaseBio.