Funding
2 Strands Biosciences raised pre-seed with funding from Elev8 and eSG
Pre-seed funding accelerates 2Strands' rare variant enrichment platform toward the clinic.
Pre-seed funding accelerates 2Strands' rare variant enrichment platform toward the clinic.
2Strands Biosciences has closed its pre-seed financing round, co-led by Elev8.vc and supported by Enterprise Singapore (eSG). The capital will fast-track development of the company's proprietary rare variant enrichment technology — the engine behind accurate, affordable Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) monitoring.
The pre-seed round brings together investors who share 2Strands' conviction that cancer recurrence should be caught before it takes hold. Elev8.vc — a deep-tech focused fund — co-led the round, with non-dilutive support from Enterprise Singapore under its early-stage startup programmes.
While terms remain undisclosed, the financing provides the runway 2Strands needs to mature its assay chemistry, expand its scientific team, and begin structured engagement with clinical key opinion leaders across the precision oncology ecosystem.
Cancer recurrence remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) is a powerful biomarker for earlier relapse detection — but its extremely low abundance in blood demands ultra-deep sequencing, making current MRD tests costly and difficult to scale for routine longitudinal monitoring.
Our enrichment approach decouples sensitivity from sequencing depth — that's what makes routine, affordable monitoring possible. — 2Strands Biosciences
By concentrating the signal that matters before sequencing even begins, 2Strands aims to bring high-sensitivity monitoring within reach of every patient and clinician — not just those at well-resourced centres.
At the core of 2Strands is a proprietary rare variant enrichment technology that selectively concentrates mutant alleles prior to sequencing, while depleting non-target background. The result is a dramatic reduction in the sequencing burden required to detect low-frequency mutations.
This reduces sequencing requirements, enables detection of multiple low-frequency mutations at once, and helps balance cost, sensitivity and specificity — better guiding treatment decisions and improving patient outcomes. It is the foundation of the company's first product, 2Strands Recura.
With fresh capital, 2Strands will focus on three priorities over the coming months: maturing the enrichment chemistry toward clinical-grade robustness, growing its assay development and bioinformatics team, and advancing early validation work alongside clinical collaborators at the National Cancer Centre Singapore.
The company is also participating in leading accelerator programmes — including MedTech Innovator's APAC and US-Market Access tracks — to sharpen its path to the clinic and the market.
2Strands Biosciences is an early-stage precision diagnostics company developing accurate, cost-effective and scalable blood-based monitoring tests for cancer patients. The team brings together extensive expertise in molecular biology, genomics and assay development. Learn more about our mission →