Single-cell RNA sequencing reads which genes are switched on in each individual cell of a sample, a technique widely used in biological research. Scipio bioscience, founded in 2017 near Paris, developed Asteria, a benchtop kit that captures cells in a hydrogel to prepare them for sequencing, together with Cytonaut, cloud software to analyse the results.
The European Innovation Council granted €2,417,259 towards DEEP-IN-CELL, a €3.45 million project to industrialise the kit, planned to run from January 2023 to December 2025. The EIC Fund also lists Scipio in its portfolio. On 18 September 2024 the commercial court opened the company's judicial liquidation, the formal end of an insolvency, and CORDIS records the project as "terminated on 18 September 2024". No results were published.
Company file
- Legal entity
- Scipio bioscience SAS, SIREN 831 267 992, Montrouge
- Founded
- 1 September 2017
- CEO
- Pierre Chaumat, from March 2023
- Products
- Asteria single-cell RNA-seq kit; Cytonaut analysis software
- Investors
- Seventure Partners, High-Tech Gründerfonds; EIC Fund portfolio
- EIC project
- DEEP-IN-CELL, from 1 Jan 2023, terminated 18 Sep 2024
- Insolvency
- Payments stopped 6 Sep 2024; judicial liquidation from 18 Sep 2024
What Happened to Scipio
According to Pappers, the court fixed the date on which Scipio stopped paying its debts at 6 September 2024 and opened judicial liquidation on 18 September, with a court-appointed liquidator in Nanterre. Liquidation, unlike receivership, means the company is wound up rather than rescued. We found no announcement of a buyer for the Asteria technology.
The Technology: Cells Trapped in Gel
The CORDIS objective describes a kit using "hydrogel-based technology" that would "dramatically simplify access to single-cell studies with a shorter time to result", aiming at the performance of market leaders at a much lower cost per sample. Scipio marketed Asteria with Cytonaut as a complete benchtop solution. The project expected a "first launch in late 2024" of the industrialised version.
What the EIC Project Promised, and What the Record Shows
DEEP-IN-CELL was to scale up production of the kit for "large democratization of single-cell analysis". CORDIS shows no report, no deliverable and no result, only the termination. The company's last published accounts, for 2022, showed a net loss of €5.02 million and negative equity of €3.67 million at the end of the year in which the EIC signed the grant, on 16 December 2022.
- Industrial-scale kitNot deliveredProject terminated.
- Launch in late 2024MissedCompany liquidated September 2024.
- Public reportingNoneNo results on CORDIS.
How Scipio Was Funded
Scipio had raised a €1.2 million seed round from Seventure's Quadrivium fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds and a €6.0 million Series A in February 2020 to launch its kit in 2022. The EIC Fund lists it in its portfolio but has not published the amount or date of its investment. CORDIS does not show how much of the €2.42 million grant was paid before termination.
The Money Not Accounted For
Questions for the EIC
How much of the grant was paid, how much the EIC Fund invested and when, what due diligence the EIC did on the company's finances, and what the public will recover from the liquidation are not public.
Why Europe Should Care
The EIC put grant and equity money into a company that ended 2022, the year the grant was signed, with negative equity. Twenty-one months into the project it was in liquidation. Neither the EIC nor the EIC Fund has published an account of what was paid or recovered.
What the project promised
An industrial-scale single-cell RNA-seq kit launched in late 2024.
What the record shows
Judicial liquidation in September 2024, a terminated project and no published results.
The Verdict
A grant to a company in the red
Scipio had a product on the market and investors behind it, but its balance sheet was negative at the end of the year the EIC grant was signed. It did not survive the project. The EU's records show only the termination.
Scipio bioscience, its liquidator and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.
