What Became of SpotLab's EIC Accelerator Smartphone Microscopes

Optical microscopy is still the reference method for diagnosing tens of diseases, and it still needs a trained specialist looking down the eyepiece at the right place and time, as SpotLab's EU project summary puts it. SpotLab, a Madrid company that grew out of five years of research at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, set out to clip a smartphone onto those microscopes, send the images to a cloud platform and let artificial intelligence do the first read. In the 5 June 2019 round of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 pilot of what is now the EIC Accelerator, the European Commission selected the company for a grant. The Commission's list of winners names SpotLab alone for the project, with the website of MalariaSpot, the online game in which volunteers counted malaria parasites that started it all.

The project, also called SpotLab, received an EU contribution of €1,572,156.25 towards a total cost of €2,245,937.50 and ran from 1 November 2019 to 30 April 2022, according to CORDIS. Its stated aim was to take the product from technology readiness level 6 to 9, obtain the CE mark and validate it in several markets. Seven years after selection the company is active: its AI for bone marrow slides runs in 14 Spanish hospitals, it has a new EU grant for parasite diagnosis in Africa, and it raised its share capital again in 2026. What it has not shown is a large business.

Where SpotLab Stands Now

SpotLab is operating. The company's website, whose legal notice was updated on 8 October 2026, now markets "microscope superintelligence" for both hospital diagnostics and pharmaceutical research. It sells two branded AI products on top of its Telespot telemicroscopy platform: MedulAI, which classifies cells in bone marrow aspirates for haematology, and ParasitAI, which detects parasites in smears, from malaria to neglected tropical diseases. The site claims more than 100 hospitals and clinics in more than 20 countries and four global biopharma partners; none of these customers are named there, so the figures could not be verified.

The clearest independent sign of clinical use is MedulAI. In September 2026 the Spanish Society of Haematology and Haemotherapy, SpotLab and GSK announced that the tool is used in 14 hospitals in seven Spanish regions, among them Ramón y Cajal and La Paz in Madrid, Virgen del Rocío in Seville and Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, according to ASEBIO, the Spanish biotech association. The initiative runs under GSK's Gate2Health open-innovation programme, and the partners claim it cuts analysis time "by up to 80%"; no independent measurement of that figure is public. GSK's support goes back to at least June 2022, when Redacción Médica reported a GSK programme with Hospital 12 de Octubre to digitise and share bone marrow samples using SpotLab's 3D-printed microscope adapter and cloud platform.

The Technology: A Phone on the Eyepiece

The system has three parts, as the CORDIS objective describes them: a 3D-printed adapter, made with consumer electronics, that turns a smartphone into a camera for an ordinary microscope; a telemedicine platform that sends the images to specialists anywhere; and an "AI factory" that trains models to prioritise cases and assist diagnosis. In 2022 the company listed the hardware under the names AdaptaSpot, a phone-to-microscope adapter, and MicraSpot, a robotised 3D-printed microscope that scans samples automatically, as well as TiraSpot, an app that reads rapid tests, according to El Español.

The difference from the established alternatives, manual reading at the eyepiece or a dedicated slide scanner, is that SpotLab keeps the microscope the laboratory already owns and adds a phone and software, which the company presents as the low-cost route to digitising slides where scanners are not available. The open question for any phone-based system is image quality and standardisation, which is why its peer-reviewed work matters: a February 2024 paper in Microscopy and Microanalysis, led by SpotLab researchers with haematologists from Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, described a smartphone-based system for bone marrow cell counting with an AI pipeline that speeds up differential counts and reduces variability between observers.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The SpotLab grant agreement was signed on 16 October 2019 under the SME Instrument Phase 2 scheme. The application said the company's seed round had brought the product to TRL6 and that EU money would complement a new investment round to industrialise it, obtain CE marking and validate it in different markets. It followed a €50,000 Phase 1 feasibility grant for MicroSpot, a robotised smartphone microscope scanner, which ran from February to July 2018 and was tested with hospitals and research centres in Spain, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Colombia, according to CORDIS.

The final periodic report, covering November 2020 to April 2022, says SpotLab completed the industrialisation of the platform: 3D-printed hardware with a mobile app, a secure cloud for remote analysis and case management, and an AI factory that deploys models both in the cloud and on the phone. It says three clinical protocols were developed with institutions in Europe, Africa and Latin America, covering haematology to neglected tropical diseases, with more than 25 health professionals taking part, more than 3,000 samples digitised and more than 15,000 images analysed. It also reports two scientific articles and more than 200 communication activities. CORDIS gives an end date of 30 April 2022, 30 months after the start; whether the schedule was extended is not recorded.

On certification, the record is thinner. In March 2021, halfway through the project, co-founder María Postigo told the European Commission's Representation in Spain that the EU support had helped the company obtain certification of two products from the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) and double its staff. The final CORDIS report says the industrialisation followed European medical device rules but does not state that a CE mark was obtained. Today SpotLab's website lists CE marking, an AEMPS in vitro diagnostic manufacturing licence (No. 7377-PS) and an EUDAMED registration, but does not say which products carry the mark or in which risk class, and adds that regulatory status "may vary by product and country".

1. Industrialise the phone, platform and AI factoryDeliveredHardware, app, cloud and edge AI completed, per the final report.
2. Clinical validation in several marketsDelivered3 protocols in Europe, Africa and Latin America; 3,000+ samples; bone marrow paper in 2024.
3. CE markingPartly verifiedTwo products certified by AEMPS per the COO in 2021; the website claims CE marking without naming products.
4. Market penetrationEarly14 hospitals using MedulAI in Spain; revenue under €500,000 a year per Empresia.

What SpotLab Has Achieved Since the Award

The research money kept coming. In June 2025 SpotLab became the largest beneficiary of MultiplexAI, a €4,999,266.25 project funded by the EU's Global Health EDCTP3 partnership and coordinated by ISGlobal in Barcelona, which aims to turn ordinary microscopes into autonomous AI systems that detect malaria and parasitic neglected tropical diseases at the point of care. SpotLab's share is €1,967,500, and the project runs until 30 November 2028 with partners in Nigeria, Mozambique, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Italy and Spain, according to CORDIS and the Global Health EDCTP3 project page. In March 2026 MultiplexAI won second prize at the Spanish Red Cross Humanitarian Tech Awards at 4YFN in Barcelona, according to 4YFN.

The team grew during the EIC project. CORDIS records 14 people at the time of the application; El Español counted 22 in February 2022, and Postigo said in 2021 that the workforce had doubled. No later headcount is published in a free source.

The Money

SpotLab has never announced a priced venture round, and no investor is named in the press releases found for this article. The Mercantile Register shows the company's nominal share capital rising from €3,006 at incorporation to €20,006 in September 2017, €23,869 in early 2023 and €25,607 in early 2026, according to North Data and Empresia; the two sources give slightly different dates in January to March for the last two increases. The register also shows the company ceased to have a single shareholder in January 2023, a sign that outside shareholders came in. How much they paid, and who they are, is not public. Empresia says the latest accounts on file are for 2024 and puts annual revenue below €500,000; the full accounts, with staff, equity and results, could not be read in a free source.

SpotLab is not listed among the roughly 315 companies in the EIC Fund portfolio, which is expected: its 2019 award was grant only.

Why Europe Should Care

SpotLab sits where two EU priorities meet. The Commission's EU Global Health Strategy, adopted on 30 November 2022, commits the EU to strengthening health systems and universal health coverage and to fighting health threats until 2030, and the EU funds that work through partnerships such as Global Health EDCTP3, which now pays SpotLab for parasite diagnosis in sub-Saharan Africa. At home, the final CORDIS report argues that "the lack of enough medical specialists is a fact" and that remote access to diagnosis is needed; SpotLab's answer is a Spanish-made diagnostic AI licensed by a European regulator rather than an imported platform. The company also says its products are aligned with the EU AI Act; that claim is its own and could not be checked.

The Verdict

SpotLab has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records, company statements and EU project data, linked throughout.