GlycanAge has raised £6.5 million in a targeted funding round to accelerate the clinical development of its technology and expand access to glycan testing for clinicians worldwide. The round was led by Fifth Quarter Ventures, with participation from Guinness Ventures, BrightCap Ventures, South Central Ventures, Impetus Capital, Vesna Deep Tech VC and Lightfield Equity, alongside existing investors including LaunchHub Ventures and Kadmos Capital.
Last year, GlycanAge secured £3 million in seed funding led by LAUNCHub Ventures and Kadmos Capital.
Glycans, sugar molecules that shape immune response, inflammation and ageing, are well studied in research labs but rarely used in everyday clinical diagnostics. London-headquartered GlycanAge, with deep roots in Croatian research, wants to change that.
GlycanAge is best known for its flagship biomarker, an “inflammaging” clock based on IgG glycosylation, which is already used by hundreds of preventive and longevity clinics worldwide. The test helps clinicians personalise lifestyle and therapeutic interventions and monitor patients’ responses over time.
In the US, GlycanAge’s assays operate through CLIA-certified laboratory pathways as laboratory-developed tests (LDTs), while in Europe the company is progressing through clinical validation under IVDR frameworks, without claiming IVDR certification.
Unlike DNA, glycan patterns change dynamically in response to inflammation, stress, metabolic health, and interventions, making them particularly suited to preventive and longitudinal care. GlycanAge is initially focusing on a limited number of clinical indications, starting with cardiovascular disease. The second major focus area is female health.
GlycanAge founders, Gordan and Nikolina Lauc, believe its biomarkers may help identify transitions such as perimenopause earlier and more accurately, offering clinicians an objective signal where few exist today.
Lauc began working on glycobiology more than 20 years ago, building what has become one of the world’s research hubs in the field. Fifteen years ago, that research led to the discovery of a glycan-based ageing clock, which eventually became GlycanAge’s first commercial product. But because ageing is not classified as a disease, its early applications remained largely outside regulated healthcare.
GlycanAge currently employs over 30 people, with the majority of R&D, including clinical development and software, based in Croatia. The company is headquartered in the UK, with commercial, finance, and marketing functions split between the UK and Bulgaria.
The most visible signal of that transition is GlycanAge’s first hospital deployment at St. Catherine Specialty Hospital in Zagreb, a regional player in personalised medicine and the first hospital in Europe to introduce whole-genome sequencing into routine patient care. St. Catherine has now become the first hospital globally to integrate glycan-based biomarkers into routine cardiometabolic risk screening, using GlycanAge’s proprietary platform. Two additional public hospitals in Croatia are expected to follow in early 2026, with further deployments planned across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
