En Carta Diagnostics Raises $5.3M for At-Home Lyme and STI Tests

Jan de Vries · 2026-07-10

En Carta Diagnostics, a Paris-based DeepTech startup, is making waves in the world of at-home medical testing. They just announced the first closing of $5.3 million in financing to bring their innovative molecular diagnostics to market. ### Who's Backing This? The funding breaks down like this: - **$3.2 million in equity** led by Blue Forest Ventures, with help from Ring Capital and existing investors like CentraleSupelec Venture, 50 Partners Health, and a handful of business angels. - **$2.1 million in non-dilutive financing** from Bpifrance and other partners. This follows a $1.6 million pre-Seed round they secured back in May 2024, also led by CentraleSupelec Venture. So yeah, investors are clearly betting big on their vision. ### What's the Big Idea? Guillaume Horreard, co-founder and CEO, put it simply: "This first closing brings us closer to our mission of transforming access to testing. By enabling patients to perform reliable molecular tests wherever they are, we can support earlier diagnosis, improve patient outcomes, and help relieve pressure on healthcare systems." Founded in 2022 by Horreard and Margot Karlikow, En Carta is building a new generation of home molecular diagnostics. Think of it as combining the accuracy of a lab PCR test with the simplicity of a rapid test you'd buy at a pharmacy. Their platform is designed to work without any lab infrastructure, so you can test yourself at home and get results in about 30 minutes. ### Tackling Lyme Disease and More They're starting with Lyme disease, which is the most common vector-borne illness in the Northern Hemisphere, with about 1.2 million cases every year. It's caused by Borrelia bacteria from tick bites, and cases are growing at an alarming 22.5% per year, according to the CDC. En Carta's tech uses aptamers—these are molecules that bind to specific targets with high precision. They can be programmed to detect almost any genetic or pathogenic marker, so the possibilities are huge. ### Regulatory Wins and Partnerships Here's where it gets interesting for the US market. In January 2026, En Carta got the FDA Breakthrough Device Designation, which fast-tracks their path to market here. They're already running clinical trials in Boston and in Bialystok, Poland, for their Lyme disease test. They also signed a $13.8 million commercial partnership with AAZ, a French company that specializes in self-tests and rapid diagnostics. This deal covers co-development and commercialization of new rapid molecular tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea in Europe, with commitments for millions of units over five years. ### What's Next? Horreard summed it up: "From FDA Breakthrough Designation to a $13.8 million commercial partnership, and now $5.3 million in financing, En Carta is delivering. Our next milestone is getting our two products—a rapid molecular diagnostic for Borrelia and an STI screening test—into the hands of patients and clinicians across Europe and the US." With this cash, they'll push forward with regulatory approvals in both Europe and the US, backed by that FDA designation. It's a big step toward making high-quality diagnostics accessible to everyone, right where they are.