Single Technologies' EIC Accelerator Sequencer Reads DNA in 3D

Established short-read sequencers hold DNA fragments on the surfaces of a flow cell, and Single Technologies argues that this ties their capacity to area. Single Technologies, a Stockholm company, embeds DNA in a three-dimensional matrix and reads it with a fast confocal scanner instead, according to GEN Edge. Its EIC Accelerator project is titled "Breaking the 2-dimensional sequencing barrier with ultra low-cost (<$10), fast 3D image-based sequencing".

The EIC selected the project, Theta128, at the March 2025 cut-off for blended finance. The EU Funding & Tenders Portal records grant agreement 101247240, signed on 22 October 2025, with an EU contribution of €2,496,494.88 for 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2027. The company's first periodic report says a pre-series Theta 128 has been built and tested and an in-house data production site is taking orders. What the record does not yet hold is the number in the project title: no cost per genome has been published.

Stacking DNA instead of spreading it

In a conventional short-read sequencer, DNA fragments are fixed in a flow cell, and GEN Edge describes the established design as a two-surface flow cell with billions of nanowells. Single Technologies' founder Johan Strömqvist told GEN Edge in May 2024 that his company holds the DNA in a 3D matrix he compared to a stack of Post-it notes, imaged by a high-speed confocal scanner sensitive to single fluorescent molecules. "We realized that the technology scales with a cube, which is a game changer," he said; in his account, capacity grows with volume rather than area.

The same article recorded the doubts. Keith Robison said he had not seen anything "solid" from the company, and the technologist Nava Whiteford questioned Strömqvist's claim that the method works with almost any fluorescent sequencing chemistry. The $10 genome comes from the company's adviser Bob Kain, a former Illumina engineering chief, who told GEN Edge the optical architecture "had the potential" to bring the cost per human genome to $10 and below. The company website quotes him saying it "could get us to genomes under $10".

The EU project summary on the funding portal frames the goal more broadly than whole genomes: an imaging-based platform for massively parallel analysis of nucleic acids and other molecular targets, covering genomics, transcriptomics and spatially resolved analysis, with keywords including in situ sequencing, single-molecule imaging and nanofluidics.

What Theta128 promised, and the first report

The project sets out a phased route to market: first centralised data generation for early adopters, then service-based access and instrument placement, and only at the end sales of instruments and consumables. Single Technologies is the sole beneficiary. The first periodic report, covering 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026, states that "a pre-series version of the sequencer Theta 128 has been designed, assembled, and tested", that sample preparation equipment has been developed, and that "an internal data production site has been launched and is ready to accept orders for selected sequencing applications". It adds that the capability to sequence at least 2 billion reads has been established.

The report gives no accuracy figure, no error rate, no run time and no cost per base, and lists no publications. Grant agreement 101247240 had no CORDIS page when checked on 28 October 2026 (the address returned "page not available"); the record cited here is the Commission's funding portal.

1. Pre-series Theta 128 sequencerReportedDesigned, assembled and tested, per the first periodic report.
2. Data generation for early adoptersLaunchedIn-house site accepting orders for selected applications; no customer named.
3. High sequencing accuracyNot publishedNo accuracy or error data in the report or in a publication.
4. Genome below $10Not shownNo cost per genome or per base published.
5. Instrument placement and salesLater phaseNot yet due under the project's own plan; none announced.

A production site first promised for 2022

The data production site is not a new idea. When the company raised €5 million in an oversubscribed share issue in December 2020, Strömqvist told Realtid the ambition was to open the first production facility in Stockholm in 2022, and the company's release carried by Sting and Nordic Life Science set the same target. In May 2024 GEN Edge reported two commercial Theta systems expected by the start of 2025. The EU report places the launch of the site in the period ending July 2026, and describes the machine as pre-series.

From sequencer maker to data supplier

The website now presents Single Technologies as "the infrastructure for biological AI". Customers send DNA libraries, cells or tissue, and the data production site returns sequencing and 3D multimodal data for three applications: cell profiling, drug localisation and model training. That matches the first phase of the EU plan, so it is not a change of course. The page invites quote requests, names no paying customer, and says further collaborations are under confidentiality.

The named users are academic. The website quotes Ian Hoffecker of KTH, Ulf Landegren of Uppsala University, who also invested in the 2020 share issue, and Stefan Stricker of LMU Munich. Hoffecker coordinates one of two EU-funded research projects in which the company is a partner. REGENERAR, an EIC Pathfinder project coordinated by the University of Coimbra on reprogramming brain cells, runs from March 2024 to February 2028, and CORDIS records €353,000 of it for Single Technologies. VOLUMINEX, coordinated by KTH and announced by SciLifeLab in November 2024, runs from March 2025 to February 2030 with €500,000 for the company.

The money

The company's announcement of July 2025, as summarised by Distill Intelligence, put the EIC package at €12.5 million: the €2.5 million grant and €10 million of equity. Nordic9 reported on 2 July 2025 that the company raised €10 million from the EIC Fund and SEK 30 million from existing shareholders, naming JOvB Investment, Achilles Capital and Simon Josefsson alongside the fund. The EIC Fund's list of invested companies did not include Single Technologies when checked on 28 October 2026; whether the equity has been paid is not public. GEN Edge put total funding at about €16 million in May 2024.

The register summary on Syna shows the company as active, with 28 employees, revenue of SEK 2,948,000 for 2025, up 50% on 2024, and a result of minus SEK 9,678,000. tic.io gives a lower estimated 2025 turnover band of SEK 1.0 million to 2.5 million and 20 to 49 staff; the two sources disagree, and the filed accounts were not freely available to settle it. Neither shows an insolvency.

Why Europe funds a sequencer

The EU's 1+ Million Genomes initiative, signed in April 2018, aims "to enable secure access to genomics and the corresponding clinical data across Europe", and its Genome of Europe project plans national reference datasets from whole-genome sequencing of at least 100,000 citizens. The Theta128 summary argues that current next-generation sequencing remains constrained by cost, scalability and accessibility, and offers its imaging-based platform as the answer. Whether its machine is cheaper than, or as accurate as, existing instruments is what the project has yet to show in public.

Single Technologies was not asked for comment for this article. The reporting is based on publicly available sources, listed below.