Reading the genome of an infection - one sample, thousands of microbes, and the AI to tell doctors which ones matter.
A doctor orders a culture. Three days later the result comes back: no growth. The patient is still sick. That gap - the infection a petri dish never reveals - is the problem Biotia was built to close.
Biotia is a New York health-technology company that fights infectious diseases by combining next-generation DNA sequencing with AI-driven software. Rather than trying to grow a microbe in a dish, Biotia sequences the DNA in a clinical sample and lets software identify what is there - bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses - along with the genetic markers that predict antimicrobial resistance.
The company's platform matches a sample against a clinically curated database of more than 16,000 microbial species. From a single microbiome test, its AI engine, Chelsea, produces an actionable report: which organisms are present and which drugs they are likely to resist. It is metagenomics applied to the bedside.
Biotia was spun out of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in 2016 and runs a CLIA-certified clinical laboratory in New York City. Its founders came from research that mapped microbes in unusual places - the human body, the New York City subway, hospital surfaces, even the International Space Station - and turned that curiosity into a diagnostics company.
The wager is straightforward. Culture-based testing, the standard for more than a century, misses too much and moves too slowly for the patients who can least afford a wrong guess. Reading the genome instead asks a different question - what is actually in this sample? - and answers it in one pass.
One test screens for four classes of pathogen and their resistance markers at once. That breadth - not just speed - is the pitch. Clinicians managing complex infections rarely want another partial answer.
Biotia's core is a pipeline that turns a clinical sample into a decision. DNA is extracted and sequenced; the AI platform Chelsea classifies every organism it finds against Biotia's curated reference, then flags antimicrobial-resistance and virulence markers. The output is a clinician-facing report rather than a raw data dump - the analytical step, not just the sequencing, is where Biotia adds value.
The problems Biotia targets are concrete. Culture can fail to grow fastidious or slow organisms, delaying treatment for days. Broad-spectrum antibiotics get prescribed blind, feeding the rise of antimicrobial resistance. And in what the company calls diagnostic deserts, access to advanced testing is uneven. Reading the genome directly is Biotia's answer to all three: catch what culture misses, name the resistance before treating, and deliver it through a software platform that can scale.
Biotia isn't selling a faster petri dish. It is asking a different question - and against clinical-metagenomics peers such as Karius, Delve Bio and Day Zero Diagnostics, its edge is the curated database, the AI resistance prediction and its own CLIA lab and regulatory footprint.
AI-driven shotgun metagenomic assay for urinary tract infections - the first genomics-based urine assay leveraging AI approved by the New York State Department of Health.
Metagenomic assay for detecting pathogens in joint-fluid samples, supporting diagnosis of joint and prosthetic-joint infections.
A diagnostic solution for health systems that applies sequencing and AI to identify microorganisms and antimicrobial resistance from clinical samples.
Antimicrobial-resistance prediction tool that achieved the highest prediction accuracy in the 2025 CAMDA AMR Challenge.
The AI engine that identifies known and emerging bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses - plus AMR and virulence markers - from 16,000+ species.
A platform for organizing, analyzing and sharing microbial-genomics data across research and surveillance projects.
Biotia runs a B2B model on two legs. The first is clinical testing: it sells metagenomic diagnostic services from its CLIA-certified lab to hospitals, health systems and providers. The second is software: it licenses the AI analytics platform - Chelsea, BIOTIA-DX, GeoSeeq - for microbial identification, resistance prediction and biosurveillance. Revenue comes from test volume, health-system contracts and platform partnerships.
Where the expertise sits: Biotia's advantage is the combination of wet lab and dry lab under one roof - sequencing chemistry, a clinically curated 16,000-species reference, machine-learning models for pathogen and resistance calling, and the regulatory work to get a genomics assay cleared by a state health department. Few teams hold all four.
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead / Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | $2.4M | Dec 2019 | Seed financing to develop AI-powered pathogen detection; scientific advisory board expanded. |
| Series A | $8M | Aug 2022 | Led by OCA Ventures. Joined by Continuum Health Ventures, Phoenix Venture Partners, SeedtoB Capital, SK Square Americas, Digital-Dx Ventures. Oversubscribed. |
Total raised to date: approximately $10.4M. Estimated annual revenue: ~$2.2M.
Spun out of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute by Niamh O'Hara, Christopher Mason and Rachid Ounit to fight infectious disease with genomics and AI.
Raised seed financing to develop AI-powered pathogen detection and diagnostic methods, and expanded its scientific advisory board.
OCA Ventures led the round, joined by Continuum Health Ventures, Phoenix Venture Partners, SeedtoB Capital, SK Square Americas and Digital-Dx Ventures.
New York State Department of Health approved BIOTIA-ID Urine, the first genomics-based urine assay leveraging AI.
BIOTIA-DX Resistance topped the 2025 CAMDA AMR Challenge for accuracy, and Biotia signed a joint development agreement with Mayo Clinic.
Evolutionary biologist and health-tech entrepreneur leading Biotia's commercialization and clinical strategy.
Geneticist known for pioneering microbial research from the human body and the NYC subway to outer space.
Computational scientist whose work underpins Biotia's microbial-classification technology.
A joint development agreement with Mayo Clinic pairs clinical expertise with Biotia's analytics; its CLIA lab operates at BioBAT, affiliated with SUNY Downstate.
Biotia's scientific roots include mapping the microbiome of the entire New York City subway system.
Its founders' research has followed microbes from the human body to hospitals to the International Space Station.
Chelsea screens for four classes of pathogen - bacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses - in a single test.
The company runs its own CLIA-certified clinical lab at BioBAT in Brooklyn.
Biotia combines next-generation DNA sequencing with AI software to detect and identify pathogens - bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses - and antimicrobial-resistance markers from a single clinical sample, helping providers diagnose hard-to-detect infections.
Biotia was founded in 2016 as a spinout from the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech by Niamh B. O'Hara (CEO), Christopher E. Mason and Rachid Ounit.
Biotia has raised about $10.4M total, including a $2.4M seed round in 2019 and an oversubscribed $8M Series A in 2022 led by OCA Ventures.
Its products include BIOTIA-ID Urine and Joint Fluid diagnostic assays, the BIOTIA-DX health-systems solution and BIOTIA-DX Resistance, the Chelsea AI platform, and the GeoSeeq software platform.
Instead of growing microbes in culture, Biotia sequences all the DNA in a sample and uses AI to identify pathogens and drug resistance against a curated database of 16,000+ species - catching infections that culture-based methods often miss.
Compiled from public sources including biotia.io, GenomeWeb, BioSpace, HIT Consultant and Crunchbase. Figures such as revenue and team size are approximate.