CollimateHealth Secures €6 Million for Microsphere Therapy
The life sciences startup CollimateHealth has closed an oversubscribed seed funding round of 6 million euros. The company is developing a novel microbeam therapy that could fundamentally transform cancer treatment. Investors include VP Venture Partners, Positron, XISTA Science Ventures, the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), and caesar.
With the fresh capital, CollimateHealth plans to develop its first clinical prototype and advance the necessary preclinical studies. The first patients are expected to be treated with the technology as early as the end of 2028.
New Approaches to Radiation Therapy
Conventional radiation therapy today primarily uses broad beams and comparatively low radiation doses. Although it is one of the most important tools in cancer medicine, side effects are often unavoidable.
CollimateHealth is taking a completely different approach. The microspot therapy it has developed uses extremely fine beams in the micrometer range and combines them with significantly higher radiation doses. This produces targeted biological effects that go far beyond the mere destruction of tumor cells.
Reducing the medical beam guidance system of a synchrotron to a system with a footprint of less than 10 square meters is a true deep-tech moonshot with the potential to fundamentally transform cancer treatments.
Dr. Hans Maria Heÿn, Co-founder and CEO of CollimateHealth
According to the startup, the treatment triggers a particularly intense form of cell death that activates the immune system and stimulates it to fight cancer cells even outside the directly irradiated area.
Synergies with Immunotherapy and Chemotherapy
The technology appears particularly promising when combined with existing cancer treatments. The temporary channels in the tumor tissue created by the microbeams are intended to improve drug uptake, thereby making both chemotherapy and modern immunotherapies more effective.
This means that in the future, the platform could not only be used as a standalone treatment method but also significantly enhance existing therapeutic approaches.
Decades of research as a foundation
Behind CollimateHealth is an interdisciplinary founding team with backgrounds in science and entrepreneurship. The company was co-founded by Prof. Dr. Stefan Bartzsch (CSO), Dr. Johanna Winter (CTO), and Dr. Hans Maria Heÿn (CEO).
The underlying technology emerged from nearly a decade of scientific research. The goal was to translate microbeam technology—previously available mainly in research institutions—into a clinically usable system. According to the startup, they succeeded in reducing the beam path of a synchrotron to a compact system with a footprint of less than ten square meters. This is a technological breakthrough that could make practical use in clinics possible in the first place.
Investors Bet on DeepTech Moonshot
The seed round was led by a consortium of leading European life sciences investors. In addition to VP Venture Partners, participants included Positron, XISTA Science Ventures, the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), and caesar.
CollimateHealth demonstrates the disruptive power of outstanding science. We believe this microbeam platform has the potential to become a key component of radiation therapy and the broader fight against cancer.
Joseph Peeraer, Founding Partner at Positron
For the investors, the appeal lies not only in the further development of radiation therapy itself. Rather, they see the platform’s potential to enable new combination therapies and to sustainably improve existing treatment approaches.
From Munich to clinical application
CollimateHealth has been supported by numerous innovation programs, including UnternehmerTUM, the TUM Venture Lab Healthcare, BioM, BayStartup, and Medical Valley.
In addition, the company has received several prestigious awards, including the Falling Walls Award 2025 and the MedTech Ideator Award at Best of Biotech in Vienna.
If the upcoming development steps are successful, CollimateHealth could rise to become one of the most exciting European deep-tech companies in the field of cancer medicine within a few years. The combination of novel radiation physics, immune activation, and clinical scalability addresses one of the greatest medical challenges of our time: the more effective treatment of tumors that have been difficult to treat until now.
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