Readily Diagnostics wins €811K Gates Foundation grant for affordable STI test
What's the deal? Readily DiagnosticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Swedish point-of-care diagnostics company, has received a grant of about €811,000 (9 million SEK) from the Gates FoundationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → to develop an affordable test for the world's most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
What's the endgame? The money funds early concept and feasibility work for a point-of-care test covering chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis — three infections that cause hundreds of millions of new cases each year. The work spans sample preparation, antimicrobial resistance detection, and a full product-development roadmap.
Founded in 2022 and spun out of Uppsala University, Readily builds on the same padlock-probe technology it developed for respiratory infections, now redirected to STIs. Its platform delivers a molecular result close to the patient, with no central laboratory needed.
Why now? In many low- and middle-income countries, people are treated on symptoms alone because accurate testing is too slow, costly, or unavailable. That leads to missed infections, overused antibiotics, and continued transmission.
The test will also detect genetic markers of antibiotic resistance in gonorrhea, which the World Health Organization lists as an urgent resistance threat. Identifying resistance before treatment helps clinicians pick the right drug and protects the ones that still work.
"A diagnosis should not depend on where you happen to live," said Liza Löf, chief executive officer of Readily Diagnostics. "This grant from the Gates Foundation lets us show that an accurate STI test can also be simple and affordable enough to use anywhere."
The signal: The grant lands amid varied funding for decentralised and rapid diagnostics startups in Europe. EU-Startups has reported around €34 million across adjacent deals in 2026, including €5 million for Paris-based En Carta DiagnosticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, €24 million for Dutch startup ShanX Medtech, and €1.3 million for Stockholm-based EyedentityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — signalling steady investor and philanthropic appetite for testing that works outside the lab.
Read more: EU-Startups
Image credit: Readily Diagnostics
