From fiber optics to forces that shape biology.

Founded:

2011

Tech

Life science

Forward.one entry point:

Series A, continued support into Series B

Headquarters

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

The Challenge

Biology is mechanics as much as chemistry. How cells, tissues and organoids feel and respond to force drives disease, development, and therapy response. Yet most lab tools barely measure mechanics at all, or damage the very samples researchers want to study.

Optics11 Life builds precision instruments that measure how soft biological materials respond to mechanical force, using fiber-optic sensors to perform ultra-sensitive, non-invasive testing on live cells, tissues, and 3D models under near-physiological conditions

FORWARD.one involvement

The Optics11 story started with a single spin-out from VU Amsterdam, powered by Davide Iannuzzi’s fiber-top sensing research and entrepreneur Hans Brouwer. The technology had many potential applications, life sciences, industrial sensing, defense, energy, and the company initially tried to pursue several at once.

We invested early and helped create focus. Together with the founders, we split the business into two dedicated companies: Optics11 Life for life science instrumentation, and Optics11 for industrial and infrastructure sensing. Optics11 Life could then go all-in on mechanobiology, organoids, and 3D cell culture, turning a generic sensing platform into a category-defining product line.

Since then, we’ve backed the company through its growth rounds, supporting strategy, hiring and commercialization as the team translated advanced fiber-optic sensing into instruments used by top universities, biotech, and pharma.

Every cell and tissue carries a mechanical story. When researchers can finally measure those forces with precision, they discover biology that was invisible before.

Niek Rijnveld

CEO & Co-founder

Results

From a platform technology to a go-to mechanobiology toolkit:

Global customer base: instruments installed at leading universities, hospitals, and R&D centers across Europe, North America and Asia, serving applications from 3D cell culture and organoids to biomaterials and regenerative medicine.
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Full mechanobiology product suite: nanoindentation platforms Piuma, Chiaro, and Pavone, plus the Cuore 3D muscle contractility system, giving researchers a complete toolbox to quantify stiffness, viscoelasticity and active force generation.High-throughput mechanics, routine in the lab: Pavone systems can run thousands of measurements per day, integrating with standard workflows and well plates so mechanics data becomes a standard read-out alongside imaging and genomics.Institutional validation & funding: Optics11 Life has raised multiple funding rounds and recently secured a ~$17M growth round to scale its commercial presence and expand the product portfolio.