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Dentsu’s VC fund on Cue with first investment

Dentsu Ventures Global Fund I, Dentsu Inc’s corporate venture capital fund, has made it first investment in Cue Inc, a US technology company that created Cue, an at-home device for tracking health information at the molecular level.

Dentsu Ventures was established in April of this year with the objectives of investing in ambitious start-up companies that will create an as yet unseen future and furthering open innovation across the Dentsu Group through collaboration with investees. In addition to funding, Dentsu Ventures will support businesses and entrepreneurs by providing problem-solving solutions and resources that are unique to the Group. Cue Inc. is the fifth company in which Dentsu Ventures has invested.

Cue Inc has developed a cube-shaped hardware device into which diagnostic cartridges are inserted to provide easy at-home analysis of healthcare data at the molecular level, together with a smartphone application that can manage the results of the analysis. Through a small sample of blood, saliva or mucus that has been collected and added to a colour-coded cartridge which is then inserted into the Cue hardware device, a user can easily track health indicators such as vitamin D, testosterone, inflammation, influenza and fertility. After approval from the relevant authorities has been obtained, the company aims to launch the product in the EU and Hong Kong in the second quarter of 2016. It should be available in the US sometime during 2016 and in Japan in 2017. In the future, it is expected that Cue will be able to handle twenty health indicators.

Amid a growing consumer interest in health, Dentsu Ventures believes that the importance of Cue Inc’s technology, which enables users to easily analyse biological information at the molecular level and can be used to promote health and wellbeing, will grow in the future. Looking ahead, the Dentsu Group will provide support for the dissemination of the Cue healthcare device worldwide and the other new businesses that the company will develop in the future

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