{"entity":{"id":"bikanta","kind":"company","name":"Bikanta","aka":[],"tldr":"Bikanta tried to use tiny fluorescent diamonds as imaging probes to spot cancer earlier. It went through Y Combinator in 2014 and is no longer operating.","summary":"Bikanta developed fluorescent nanodiamond probes for background-free optical imaging, aiming to improve the signal of medical imaging and diagnostics by up to 100-fold over conventional fluorescence according to its YC profile. Nanodiamonds are bright, photostable and non-toxic and can be functionalised to bind cancer targets. The company is listed as inactive in the YC directory and its website was offline when checked on 2026-09-10; no clinical product was launched. Recorded here as part of the complete map of YC companies that took on cancer.","asOf":"2026-09-10","links":[{"label":"Y Combinator profile","url":"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bikanta"}],"tags":["yc"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":["imaging","diagnostics"],"technologies":["optical-imaging"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hq":"Berkeley, CA","country":"US","companyType":"imaging","website":"https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bikanta","stage":"defunct","ycBatch":"S14","investors":["y-combinator"],"funding":[]},"route":"/companies/bikanta/","neighbours":{"section":[{"id":"diagnostics","kind":"section","name":"Diagnostics & Biomarkers","route":"/fronts/diagnostics/"},{"id":"imaging","kind":"section","name":"Imaging","route":"/fronts/imaging/"}],"technology":[{"id":"optical-imaging","kind":"technology","name":"Optical & fluorescence imaging","route":"/technologies/optical-imaging/"}],"company":[{"id":"y-combinator","kind":"company","name":"Y Combinator","route":"/companies/y-combinator/"}]}}