CubaseBio is a Stockholm-based spatial biology company founded by innovators in genomics and technology to build tools that reveal true biology in three dimensions. Voima Ventures led the recent communicated €5.9M blended finance round to scale the technology. In this blog, we’re diving deeper into why this matters and why we chose to invest.
Moving beyond 2D spatial biology
Biology is inherently three-dimensional. Cells and tissues form the functional building blocks of our bodies, interacting across all three axes. Yet, for decades, spatial biology has been tethered to thin, two-dimensional sections. CubaseBio is disrupting this 2D paradigm by leveraging molecular networks to encode spatial proximity of molecules directly in the three-dimensional sample. This approach uses standard short read DNA sequencing to readout molecular proximity barcode networks, which then allows to computationally reconstruct tissue architecture in 3D – without the need for traditional optical imaging. By removing the hardware bottleneck, the platform is uniquely cost-effective and scalable, specifically designed for high-throughput drug development that demands true 3D spatial context.
Tackling the costly drug development funnel
Currently, 90% of drug candidates fail, leading to development cycles that cost billions. A key reason for this failure is that drugs working on 2D cell cultures or animal models often fail to translate to 3D human tissue. While organoids and 3D cell culture models are on the verge of replacing animal models in legislation, they lack technologies to profile them in their true 3D form. CubaseBio provides exactly that: a deep profiling tool that can pinpoint subtle drug effects across hundreds of individually treated organoids in parallel. By recovering “false negatives” and eliminating “false positives” early, CubaseBio is positioned to save years of development time and bring critical treatments to market faster.
Why we invested
At Voima Ventures, we back science-driven companies that unlock entirely new industrial shifts, such as capabilities in biology. Spatial biology has rapidly become one of the most transformative areas in life science, yet current technologies remain constrained by imaging hardware and two-dimensional limitations.
CubaseBio introduces a fundamentally different approach. By using molecular networks and sequencing to reconstruct tissue architecture in three dimensions, the company enables scalable spatial biology without the limitations of traditional imaging systems.
This combination of deep scientific innovation, a highly scalable platform, and immediate relevance for drug development made CubaseBio a compelling investment for Voima Ventures.
Voima Ventures Partner Jussi Sainiemi comments: “CubaseBio’s founding team brings together globally leading researchers and accomplished entrepreneurs in spatial biology. The company’s platform technology has the ability to, enable shorter and cheaper development cycles for new drugs as well as better and more accurate cancer treatment, as one example.”
Founders with a proven record
At Voima Ventures, we invest in founders building world-changing technologies and central to our investment is the quality of the founding team. CubaseBio represents a rare convergence of academic rigour and proven commercial execution. The company is led by CEO Malte Kuhnemund, who previously co-founded CARTANA alongside Xiaoyan Qian (now Chief Computational Officer at Cubase Bio). As pioneers of in situ sequencing, they successfully led CARTANA through to its acquisition by 10x Genomics, where their technology became the cornerstone of the Xenium platform chemistry. The team possesses the rare experience required to navigate the complexities of scaling a deep-tech venture from Stockholm to the global stage.
By enabling scalable 3D spatial biology, CubaseBio is helping shift biological research from flat tissue snapshots to fully contextualized molecular maps of living systems.
