Dutch quantum biosensing startup QT Sense has raised €4 million to accelerate the development of Quantum Nuova, a platform designed to measure cellular stress in living cells at single-cell resolution. The funding marks an important step in translating quantum sensing from the laboratory into real-world biomedical research, opening new ways to study disease processes as they unfold in real time inside living tissue.
Funding to move from prototype to platform
The financing includes a €3 million seed round led by Cottonwood Technology Fund, alongside follow-on investment from QDNL Participations and an angel investor. Additional non-dilutive support strengthens the round, including a €0.6 million ONCO-Q grant to accelerate oncology-focused applications and €0.4 million from the Quantum Forward Challenge, aimed at collaborative deployment and validation in active research environments.
Together, the funding provides QT Sense with both capital and research partnerships needed to move Quantum Nuova from a high-performing prototype to a scalable discovery platform suitable for broader adoption.
Seeing what traditional biology cannot
Most biological analysis techniques rely on fixed tissue samples or non-living cells, providing only static snapshots of complex biological systems. Quantum Nuova takes a different approach by enabling real-time measurement of biochemical activity in living cells and tissues, allowing researchers to observe how cellular processes evolve dynamically.
At the core of the platform are fluorescent nanodiamond quantum sensors. These sensors detect subtle biochemical signals such as oxidative stress, metabolic shifts, and free radical activity, all of which play a critical role in disease development but are difficult to measure directly using conventional tools.
A new layer of insight at single-cell resolution
By operating at single-cell resolution, Quantum Nuova allows scientists to observe how individual cells behave differently even within the same tissue. This capability makes it possible to study cellular adaptation, drug response, and differentiation into distinct subpopulations, areas where bulk analysis techniques often mask critical variability.
Unlike genomics or proteomics, which infer activity indirectly, Quantum Nuova provides a functional readout of cellular stress and metabolism as it happens. This adds a new dimension to spatial biology by linking biochemical behaviour to cellular location and context.
Expanding applications in oncology
The platform has already been used to study the mechanisms of action of FDA-approved drugs, validating its ability to reveal functional responses in living cells. With support from the ONCO-Q grant, QT Sense is now applying Quantum Nuova to colorectal cancer research.
The goal is to map oxidative stress patterns and metabolic vulnerabilities in tumour models, helping researchers identify functional differences within cancer cell populations. These insights could inform future diagnostic approaches and support the development of more targeted therapies.
Building for real-world research environments
The new funding will be used to enhance hardware robustness, throughput, and integrated analytics, ensuring the system can operate reliably in active research settings. QT Sense plans to deploy early-access systems with strategic partners, enabling real-world testing and refinement of the platform.
These deployments will support mechanism-of-action studies, functional heterogeneity analysis, and rapid, label-free measurements across multiple samples, helping researchers move faster from hypothesis to insight.
Quantum sensing meets life sciences
By combining quantum technology with live-cell biology, QT Sense is positioning Quantum Nuova as a foundational tool for a new class of biological measurements. As the platform matures, it aims to give researchers unprecedented visibility into how cells experience stress, adapt, and respond to treatment, all in real time.
With fresh capital and strong research backing, QT Sense is taking a decisive step toward making quantum-enabled cellular sensing a practical and powerful part of modern biomedical research.