Call it modern magic: a PCR test that fits in the palm of your hand and delivers lab-grade results faster than your coffee order at Blue Bottle. Especially when it comes from a company called Visby Medical, a name that sounds like it belongs on a spaceship but is busy transforming your living room into a diagnostic command center. While Big Healthcare is still out here playing dial-up, Adam de la Zerda and team are dropping fiber-optic level speed with real-world stakes: STIs, COVID, flu. And now, a first-of-its-kind FDA-approved over-the-counter women’s sexual health PCR test, straight from box to answer in under 30 minutes. No mailing spit in a tube. No labs. No guessing.
Founded back in 2012 under the name Click Diagnostics (because even back then they knew something needed to click), Visby has been on a quiet, steady grind. Think less Silicon Valley hype machine, more underground legend building a new track every year until it hits. And in 2020, they shed the “Click” for Visby, the handheld PCR pioneer that isn’t just making diagnostics easier, it’s making them smarter. Real PCR, real-time, no machine. Just a compact device, three buttons, and the kind of clinical accuracy most hospitals would envy.
Now, after raising another $55 million in a Series F round led by Catalio Capital Management, and with the door still cracked to hit $65 million, they’re not just scaling. They’re sprinting. With follow-on support from heavy-hitters like ND Capital, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Pitango Ventures, Blue Water Life Science Advisors, and John Doerr, this isn’t about cashing checks. It’s about rewriting access.
Because let’s be real: the diagnostic industry has been gatekept by bulky machines, shipping delays, and enough bureaucracy to make Kafka blush. Visby said no thanks. With a platform built from the ground up by Adam de la Zerda, a Stanford PhD with a Technion pedigree and enough patents (78 personally) to make most R&D labs sweat, they’ve collapsed time, cost, and complexity into a test the size of your phone. Gregory Loney helped architect it all as co-founder and executive operator, bringing decades of medical device chops from Ventana, Affymetrix, and Bioimagene.
This round isn’t a victory lap. It’s the launch code for Visby’s next chapter: full-blown consumer availability. A brand-new, FDA-cleared at-home women’s STI test, dropping next month DTC. Precision diagnostics just walked through your front door. And Visby isn’t trying to replace your doctor, they’re making sure your doctor doesn’t need a lab tech, a courier, and three days of waiting to do their job.
This is what happens when deep science meets market obsession. When a platform scales from 100 to 9,000 devices a week, then flips that into a robotic line capable of producing hundreds of thousands monthly. Visby has gone from pandemic sprint to long-haul disruptor, and with over $525 million raised to date, they’re not interested in following paths. They’re laying tracks.
