DropGenie, a biotech startup with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Montréal, said on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, that BDC Capital’s Thrive Fund has joined its seed-plus financing, bringing the round to $5 million (about C$7 million). The company builds chip-based lab systems that run gene-editing experiments on tiny droplets of liquid, BetaKit reported.
DropGenie Funding Round at a Glance
- Size: $5 million in total equity for the seed-plus round.
- Announced: Monday morning, Oct. 26, 2026, with the addition of BDC Capital’s Thrive Fund as a new investor.
- Lead investor: Skeleton Key, a Massachusetts-based firm.
- Other backers: Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and CQDM, with participation from Montréal’s Real Ventures and Anges Québec.
- Use of funds: commercializing the company’s first product, a gene-editing system on a chip.
- Next milestone: a commercial launch planned for the second quarter of 2027.
- Team: about 10 employees, split between Montréal and Cambridge.
How the Gene-Editing Chip Works
DropGenie’s platform relies on digital microfluidics, which uses electrical signals to move very small amounts of liquid around a chip to carry out routine lab steps. Rather than moving samples between separate instruments, the experiment runs on one chip using a single droplet. The company says its method uses up to 100 times fewer cells than traditional approaches, along with less reagent, the often costly chemicals that experiments consume.
The first product applies that approach to CRISPR screening. Scientists use CRISPR, a genome editing tool, to change DNA and test which genes are linked to particular traits or diseases. The National Human Genome Research Institute explains how such tools let researchers add, remove or alter genetic material at specific locations.
“A lot of work in the early stages of discovery is extremely artisanal,” CEO Alison Hirukawa told BetaKit. “You’d have a PhD student doing a lot of manual work, and you’re extremely constrained by…material from a patient, which is very finite.”
On cost, she said: “A lot of reagents and materials in that world are super bespoke or expensive. Bringing down the volume and the amount of input required completely changes the cost profile.”
Customers and Business Model
The startup is aiming at large drugmakers. It has partnerships with AbbVie and UCB Pharma, along with life science instrument makers Danaher and Sartorius, according to BetaKit. DropGenie plans to sell its automated lab workflows as a service and to sign more data partnerships.
Investors are also pointing to demand for data to train artificial intelligence models used in drug discovery. Mona Minhas, managing director of the BDC Thrive Fund, said in a statement that DropGenie “generates the high-quality, human-relevant data those models need.”
From McGill Research to Cambridge
DropGenie was founded in 2018. Hirukawa was a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University’s Goodman Cancer Research Centre when she met co-founders Hugo Sinha and Philippe Vo, along with Mathieu Husser, who has since left the company, through a McGill-linked research project. The group combined its microfluidics platform with synthetic biology methods to speed up laboratory research.
“Where we want this to go is unlocking new therapies,” Hirukawa said, describing the company’s work as “the somewhat unsexy work of creating these automation systems.”
What the Deal Means for Massachusetts Biotech
The round is small next to the large deals that have marked the state’s life sciences sector this year. Through early October, Massachusetts had recorded more than $38 billion in life sciences mergers and acquisitions and more than $4 billion in initial public offerings in 2026, a combined $42.2 billion, according to the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the state’s quasi-public investment agency. The center said that total was already double the figure for all of 2025.
Early-stage companies face a tougher market for lab space and staff in parts of the region. Our recent look at Kendall Square biotech layoffs and lab vacancies covers that backdrop, and our roundup of Boston business deals in October lists other recent financings. For a larger tools deal, see our report on Repligen’s BioLife acquisition.
DropGenie has not disclosed a valuation, and BetaKit’s report did not include revenue figures.
Sources
- BetaKit: DropGenie raises $5 million USD backed by BDC (Oct. 26, 2026)
- Massachusetts Life Sciences Center: Ecosystem demonstrates continued growth in 2026 (Oct. 2, 2026)
- National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH): What is genome editing?
Additional sources
Featured image: Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from the air. Photo by Nick Allen via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped.
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