Key Deal Facts
Delee uses a blood-based assay enabled by two independent devices created to effectively isolate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs). Our technology is already being used to successfully detect prostate and breast cancer.
Delee is backed by Y Combinator and StartX and has raised over $2.4 million USD in funding, and our pre-orders are already potentially worth over $2.5 million.
Our fully functional technology was built by an experienced team of specialists in the fields of molecular biology, electronics, artificial intelligence, clinical oncology, and design and manufacture.
Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Liza Velarde, Co Founder, Director & CEO
Liza Velarde is a co-founder and acting CEO of Delee Corp. She is a Y Combinator alumna and has a bachelors degree in International Business from Tecnolde Monterrey. Velarde is responsible for the development and execution of the company's strategic plans, leading along with her co-founders, the engineering team that built Delee core technology. She has raised over $2.4M USD through investments, government funds, and multiple awards, and also secured pre-orders worth a potential value of over $2.5M USD. Velarde has also established strong relations with top hospitals and research centers and her work has been highly regarded by international institutions, such as Cartier Women's Initiative Awards and WeXchange (an initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank). In recent years, she has been acknowledged as one of the 50 most relevant people transforming Mexico and one of Forbes 100 most influential women in Mexico, and has been invited as a speaker on various international panels about cancer and entrepreneurship, such as WeXchange 2019 and The Economist: War on Cancer LATAM 2019.
Alejandro Abarca, Co Founder, Director & CTO
Alejandro Abarca is a co-founder and acting CTO at Delee Corp. He is a physicist, a Y Combinator, a Singularity University, and a Royal Academy of Engineering LIF alumnus. Abarca is a co-creator of the CytoCatch trade; isolation platform and imaging system, which isolates and analyzes circulating tumor cells from blood samples. He has published four scientific papers in international journals. He has over ten years of experience developing and producing medical devices and biosensors, including, a microfluidic device for the isolation of rare cell subpopulations based on dielectrophoretic separation, manufacturing methods for embedding metal electrodes onto thermoplastics for microfluidic applications, and an automated imaging system to study cell properties by immunostaining. Abarca also has collaborated in projects related to bioprinting and point-of-care applications with various research groups at Tecnol de Monterrey. His areas of expertise include microfabrication, manufacturing techniques for mass production, optics, and cell separation based on physical properties.
Juan Felipe Yee, Co Founder, Director & CMO
Juan Felipe Yee is a co-founder and acting CMO at Delee Corp. He is a Y Combinator alumnus, and obtained a M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering and a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering both from Tecnol gico de Monterrey. Yee is a co-creator of the CytoCatch isolation platform and imaging system, which isolates and analyzes circulating tumor cells from blood samples, and is responsible for planning, developing, implementing, and monitoring the overall strategy for the analytical and clinical validation of the CytoCatch technology. He has published 7 scientific papers in international journals and spent over a decade working and collaborating in the development of several medical devices and biosensors, including, a high intensity phototherapy LED source to treat hyperbilirubinemia in newborns, substrates made from carbon nanofiber mats coated with gold nanoparticles for the detection of specific molecules in simple solutions by SERS spectroscopy, and microfluidic devices for cell isolation based on antigen-antibody interactions, inertial forces, and dielectrophoresis.