A Durham startup that builds microscopes designed to be read by computers rather than human eyes has pulled in $25 million in fresh investor cash, money it plans to use to grow its sales team, add engineering support, and move into a bigger office in downtown Durham. Ramona Optics makes imaging systems for universities and life-sciences companies, and its machines are built to capture large volumes of sample images without a person hovering over the eyepiece.
The Series A round was led by Arch Venture Partners of Chicago, with ND Capital and StealthPoint Ventures also participating, according to Axios. Ramona employs about 25 people and plans to use the funding to expand its sales operation and engineering team as it pursues international demand, the report said.
Axios reports that Ramona was founded in 2016 by two graduate students at Caltech, one of whom, Roarke Horstmeyer, later became a professor at Duke University — a move that eventually brought the company itself to Durham, Axios reports. The startup first gained traction with labs at Duke and companies including AgBiome, and it is now relocating from its Main Street office to a larger space in the Venable Center in downtown Durham, the outlet notes.
Machines Built to Think, Not Just Look
What sets Ramona's hardware apart, according to the same Axios account, is that the microscopes are designed for computation first rather than primarily for the human eye. The company's software analyzes sample images automatically, and by the time a sample comes out of the machine, the analysis is already done — a shift that Harfouche says allows one Ramona microscope to replace 24 traditional microscopes, per the report. Ramona's devices are available in 4X and 10X magnification, and the company's research-and-development team is working on higher magnifications while also improving how analysis and results get delivered through software, Axios reports. The machines run $100,000 to $300,000, and Ramona says the technology can turn processes that used to take weeks into ones that take days.
That speed pitch lines up with how the company describes its mission on its own site: through what it calls computational microscopy, Ramona says it aims to transform the future of human health by capturing real-time dynamics and rare events that traditional imaging systems miss, according to Ramona Optics. The company says its systems are built to streamline laboratory workflows and cut down on manual tasks through automation and software, rather than requiring researchers to babysit each plate by hand.
A broader life-sciences and computing backdrop
Ramona's planned hiring comes within a sizable North Carolina life-sciences sector. According to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, 25 companies announced expansions or new facilities totaling more than $10.8 billion in 2024, with projects expected to create more than 4,500 jobs across 16 communities. The computational approach behind Ramona's products also reflects a wider research direction. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health Smart Health research program emphasizes artificial intelligence, advanced data science, and data collection, sensing, connection, analysis and interpretation, according to the program.
Vireo Aims at High-Throughput Labs
Ramona's flagship product for this push is Vireo, an automated live-cell imaging system. Vireo can analyze multidimensional video microscopy data across 24 experimental conditions at once, and it supports automated whole-plate imaging and confluency measurement across standard well plates ranging from 6 to 384 wells, according to Ramona Optics' product page. The company lists example imaging times of 30 seconds for a 96-well plate at 4X magnification and two minutes at the same plate size under 10X.
Vireo uses automated z-stacking and connects with lab-automation platforms and scheduling software through a formal Web API, and its MCAM software layer handles real-time data processing, visualization, and machine-learning analysis, per Ramona's own product documentation. The Vireo system pairs miniaturized video microscopes with real-time image processing powered by artificial intelligence, according to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.
Vireo's commercial debut followed a year-long early-access program with research institutes, including two early users at the UNC School of Medicine, the state biotech center reports. Ramona had already drawn public support before this latest raise — the same organization notes the company received a $65,000 state grant in 2021 to develop its MCAM microscope technology. Ramona has said the goal behind that work is addressing limitations baked into older imaging systems, including limited throughput, limited temporal resolution, and the risk of photodamage to samples, so scientists can work more efficiently.
Co-Founder Points to Early Backing
Horstmeyer has credited the company's earliest funding with making the current technology possible. In a LinkedIn post, he wrote, "This early funding was instrumental in helping our team create and eventually commercialize our new format of digital microscope for high-throughput biological discovery."
With the new $25 million in hand, Ramona's next chapter centers on scale — bigger office, bigger sales force, and more engineering muscle behind a product line that already claims to compress lab work that once took weeks into a matter of days.
