Biotia raises oversubscribed $9M to scale AI metagenomic infection tests
Biotia said Thursday it closed an oversubscribed $9 million financing to scale clinical metagenomics diagnostics for recurrent infections, expand women’s health tests, and move into orthopedic infection diagnostics.
Recurrent UTIs and joint infections are where standard culture often fails and patients bounce between antibiotics without a clear pathogen. Biotia is putting more money behind clinical metagenomics plus AI so those hard infections get a species-level answer in days, not another round of guesswork. The new board is built to get tests into women’s health and orthopedic clinics, not only onto a lab paper.
On Thursday, 1 October 2026, Biotia announced an oversubscribed $9 million financing. Oversubscribed means more investors wanted in than the company took. Nine million dollars is the new money. PR Newswire carries the release. The page stamps Oct 01, 2026, 09:00 ET, which is 9:00 a.m. Eastern. The dateline is New York. The source line is Biotia, Inc. Biotia calls itself the clinical metagenomics company behind the BIOTIA-ID Urine Test. Those lines are the release.
The release says the new financing exceeds Biotia’s previously announced Series A, and that the raise shows continued confidence in the technology and the long-term opportunity. A Series A is an earlier private funding round, named with a letter. The October release does not give this new round its own letter. It does not print a valuation, the price a buyer would put on the whole company. Biotia’s own press page, dated 23 August 2022, says the company raised an oversubscribed $8 million Series A led by OCA Ventures. Eight million dollars is that earlier round. The October release says the new financing is larger than that Series A. It does not reprint the eight. Those lines stay with the page that printed them.
What the money is for, as the release states it. The capital will help scale Biotia’s New York City laboratory, launch additional diagnostics in women’s health, and expand into orthopedic diagnostics. Orthopedics is care of bones and joints. Niamh O’Hara, PhD, chief executive and cofounder, said the funding is meant to expand advanced diagnostics for patients with chronic infections who have been failed by standard laboratory methods. She said the company is using the capital to expand the test menu, pursue reimbursement, and get these tools into clinicians’ hands, so more patients get better and faster answers. Reimbursement, here, is payment from a health plan. A clinician is the licensed person who orders the test. That quotation is hers, in the release. The release does not name the additional women’s health tests, and it does not say a health plan has already agreed to pay.
The flagship test, as the release states it. The BIOTIA-ID Urine Test identifies the cause of recurrent and complicated urinary tract infections. A urinary tract infection, shortened to UTI, is an infection of the bladder or the path urine takes out of the body. Recurrent means it keeps coming back. Complicated means the case is harder than a routine bladder infection. The release says the test does that with 97 percent sensitivity and 99 percent specificity, and that it is available to physicians and patients in all 50 states. Sensitivity, here, is how often the test finds an infection that is really there. Ninety-seven percent means 97 of 100 such cases, on the company’s figure. Specificity is how often the test correctly stays quiet when that infection is not there. Ninety-nine percent means 99 of 100 clear samples, on the same figure. Those two percentages are Biotia’s. The release does not describe the study behind them.
The company site says what the test reads. The patient page calls the BIOTIA-ID Urine Test a clinical metagenomic test that outperforms standard urine culture. Clinical metagenomics reads the genetic material in a sample to see which microbes are there, instead of waiting to see what grows in a dish. A culture is that older dish test. The page says the test identifies 44 pathogens, including bacteria and fungi, including organisms standard urine culture often misses, and that a drug-resistance profile is included to guide treatment. A pathogen is a microbe that can cause disease. The same page says the test was validated on clinical samples to reliably detect 44 key UTI-causing pathogens and 16 drug-resistance markers, and it prints the same 97 percent sensitivity and 99 percent specificity. A comparison table on that page puts results at 2 to 3 business days, against 2 to 5 business days for standard urine culture and for a narrower genetic method the page calls 16s sequencing. The price on that table is $249. The resolution line says species or strain. A species is the kind of microbe. A strain is a finer type inside that kind. Those lines are the company site’s. The October release does not print the 44, the 16, the $249, or the turnaround.
How a person gets the urine test, on the company pages. The patient page says it is available for at-home collection in all 50 U.S. states, and that Biotia built the care path with Clinova Solutions, a telehealth practice for complex and recurrent UTIs. Telehealth is a visit by video or phone. The provider page says the test is a laboratory-developed test, available in all 50 states for collection in a clinic or at home. A laboratory-developed test is one a certified lab designs and runs itself. It is not a boxed kit the Food and Drug Administration has cleared for other labs to buy. The October release says the urine test is available to physicians and patients in all 50 states. It does not say the FDA cleared BIOTIA-ID.
Two gaps the patient page states from the company’s own look back at samples. In a retrospective study of more than 200 symptomatic UTI samples that standard culture called negative, the page says the urine test found a causative pathogen in a majority of them, and it prints 63 percent. Retrospective means the lab looked back at samples it already had. Sixty-three percent is a bit under two in three of those culture-negative samples, on the company’s figure. Among patients where the test did find a pathogen, the page says the first antibiotic chosen under standard care would not have worked in over two out of three cases. It prints three lines: 88 percent of those first prescriptions could have been improved, 70 percent would have had no effect on the pathogen found, and 18 percent could have been switched to a drug that hits fewer kinds of microbes. A first prescription, which the page calls empiric, is the antibiotic picked before a test has named the germ. Seventy plus eighteen equals eighty-eight. The page prints the three figures together. It does not spell out that the 70 and the 18 are the two parts of the 88. The page does not name a journal, and it does not say an outside group ran the count. Those figures are Biotia’s.
Resistance, as the provider page states it. Reading a pathogen’s genome lets the lab look for genes that help a microbe survive a drug. The page says the presence of a gene does not, by itself, prove the drug will fail. The test reports genes the company says are more likely to mean resistance, in three families: beta-lactam drugs, a group that includes many penicillins and related antibiotics; trimethoprim-sulfonamide, a common sulfa combination; and glycopeptides, a group that includes vancomycin. The same page says that resistance read was awarded Best Prediction Accuracy in the 2025 and 2026 CAMDA challenges. CAMDA is a contest that scores how well a computer method predicts drug resistance from genetic data. That award line is the company’s. The page does not print the contest score.
Who Biotia is, as the October release states it. The company is advancing diagnostics for challenging and chronic infections through pathogen genomics and artificial intelligence. It is a spinout of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech. It is based in New York City, where it runs a high-complexity, CLIA-certified diagnostic laboratory. CLIA is the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, the U.S. rulebook for labs that test samples from patients. High-complexity is the top tier of that certification. It is permission for that lab to run difficult tests. It is not an FDA clearance of a device. Partners and collaborators named in the release include Mayo Clinic, Hospital for Special Surgery, which the release shortens to HSS, and NASA. Those lines are the release.
Orthopedics, and the limit on that plan. The release says the new capital will help the company expand into orthopedic diagnostics. The company homepage lists a BIOTIA-ID Joint Fluid Test for metagenomic detection of pathogens and resistance markers in synovial fluid, the liquid inside a joint, covering infections of a person’s own joint and of a prosthetic joint. A prosthetic joint is an artificial hip or knee. The provider page for that test says it is currently available for research use only, and it tells a lab that wants to use it to contact Biotia. Research use only means a lab can study the test. It is not the urine test’s offer to physicians and patients in all 50 states. The October release does not say the joint test is on sale in every state.
The board and the advisors, as the release lists them. Michele Colucci, a healthcare investor and chief executive of DigitalDx Ventures, joins as board chair. Tim Barry, cofounder of VillageMD, joins as a board member. Clive Fields, MD, the other VillageMD cofounder, a primary-care doctor, and clinical faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center, joins as a board observer. An observer sits in on the board. The release does not say he has a vote. Angelish Kumar, MD, a specialist in chronic UTIs and founder of Women’s Urology New York, joins as a clinical advisor. Lesley Northrop, PhD, joins the advisory board for women’s healthcare diagnostics. Catherine Balsam-Schwaber, former chief executive of Sōlaria Biō and founder of the women’s health company Kindra, joins the advisory board for commercialization. Commercialization is the work of getting a test into clinics and paid for. Those lines are the release.
What the new directors said. Tim Barry said diagnostics are the foundation of better patient care, because you cannot manage what you cannot accurately measure. He said Biotia’s approach to precision infectious-disease testing, especially the work in women’s health, is the kind of innovation that improves outcomes while reducing unnecessary costs, and that he is joining the board to help Biotia scale. Chris Mason, PhD, global director and cofounder, said the leaders supporting the company show the importance of making clinical metagenomic testing rapidly accessible to patients. He said their experience should speed the next phase of growth, expand the diagnostics into new markets, and help more patients. Those quotations are in the release.
Who put money into this round, as the release names them. Tim Barry and Dr. Fields joined other investors, including Convergent Ventures, DigitalDx Ventures, Cloquet Capital Partners, Continuum Health Ventures, I-Lab Angels, EGB Capital, Leawood Venture Capital, Red Bear Angels, Red Bear Ventures, and others. The release does not say how much each one wrote. The 2022 Series A page names a different lead, OCA Ventures, and a different list beside it. That list belongs to the earlier round.
The picture is a cream and teal desk graphic of the financing. A teal panel reads BIOTIA, Oversubscribed, and $9 million financing, then clinical metagenomics and AI pathogen diagnostics. Three cards sit on the cream field. The first names the BIOTIA-ID Urine Test, with 97 percent sensitivity, 99 percent specificity, and all 50 states. The second names the use of proceeds: scale the New York City CLIA lab, women’s health, and orthopedics. The third names the board adds: Colucci as chair, Barry, and Fields as observer, plus clinical and commercialization advisors. A line under the cards reads infectious-disease diagnostics, pathogen genomics, and AI. It is a desk graphic of facts in the release. It does not print a calendar date.
In plain terms, Biotia said on Thursday that it raised an oversubscribed $9 million, more than the $8 million Series A it announced in August 2022, to scale its New York City lab, add women’s health tests, and push further into joint infections. The urine test it already offers in all 50 states is the company’s clinical metagenomic read for recurrent and complicated UTIs, with a stated 97 percent sensitivity and 99 percent specificity, a $249 price, and a 2-to-3-business-day turnaround on the company site. The joint-fluid test on that site is still marked research use only. The pages do not print a valuation, and they do not say the Food and Drug Administration cleared BIOTIA-ID.