Myomar Molecular raises $3.5M for its urine-based muscle health test
What's the deal? Halifax-based Myomar Molecular, which developed a non-invasive urine test to assess muscle health, has closed a $3.5M seed round — exceeding its original $3M target. The round comprises $1.6M in equity investment led by Northern Ontario Angels and $1.9M in non-dilutive funding from organisations including the Ontario Centre of Innovation and the Ontario Heritage Fund.
Japanese supplements giant Suntory Wellness also participated in the round. The funding will help Myomar expand into the US and Asia.
Why now? Myomar has hit an inflection point. It recently launched its first true marketing campaigns and started working with major clinics in Canada and the US — some with millions of customers each. The result: revenues doubled last quarter compared to the prior one.
"We are scaling the company right now," said co-founder and chief executive officer Rafaela Andrade. "We just opened a lab in Aurora, Colorado, so that lab will feed the US operations."
The Colorado lab solves a practical problem — shipping urine samples across the Canada-US border is complicated. A US-based lab was essential to serve the world's largest healthcare market.
Myomar also has a major partnership with Suntory Wellness, which will use the tests to assess muscle density changes among users of its supplements. That deal is spearheading the company's growth in Japan. Additional partners in Singapore and South Korea will support broader Asian expansion.
What could go wrong? Myomar is still small and entering fiercely competitive healthcare markets in the US and Asia simultaneously. Scaling lab operations across multiple countries introduces logistical complexity, regulatory hurdles, and cost pressures. Andrade acknowledged the company is "still not as big as we'd like to be."
The signal: Myomar sits at the intersection of two powerful trends: preventative health and ageing populations. As countries like Japan face demographic crises, tools that monitor muscle deterioration in seniors — without invasive procedures — fill a growing need. Suntory's Yoshio Kinoshita called the technology "perfectly aligned" with addressing "global challenges like aging populations and wellness."
The mix of equity and non-dilutive funding also reflects a pattern among early-stage Canadian startups: leveraging government programmes to stretch runway while minimising dilution. For Myomar, that strategy bought it time to prove revenue traction before raising larger rounds.
Read more: entrevestor.com
