UK-based chemistry automation platform CheMastery has secured a "millions of pounds" sum in its seed round led by the Science Angel Syndicate and Undeterred Capital.
The round is also backed by Britbots, Elbow Beach, Fink Family Office, HERmesa, Kadmos, Formic, Cur8, Key Ventures, Dhyan and undisclosed angel investors.
According to the press release, chemistry affects 96% of all manufactured goods. Lab technicians in medicine and materials research spend countless hours trying out chemical compositions to gauge their effect on specific use-cases, providing scope for automation.
CheMastery was founded by its CEO Dr. Anna Andreou, a chemical methodologist and University of Cambridge PhD graduate, together with its chief technology officer Stefan Glatzel, a former University of Glasgow research fellow.
The startup aims to leverage automation to transform production and R&D of "small-to-medium" scale chemical outputs. In doing so it hopes to address shortfalls in lab personnel that affect chemical-making industries and academia.
A working prototype of the automation tools has been delivered already and CheMastery now proposes to demonstrate the market appeal with its next iteration, ahead of paid-for "pilot trials." The funding will go to staff recruitment and product expansion.
Dr. Anna Andreou said the company was preparing for a four-fold increase in headcount and would soon move into "purpose-built" premises to support automated chemicals research, while also looking to broaden its product offering.
"The expertise of Dr Jonathan Mattlock (Science Angel Syndicate) and Joe Wilson (Undeterred Capital) will enable us to grow our revenue streams even faster than anticipated," Andreou said.
Science Angel Syndicate co-founder Johnathan Matlock recounted his own chemicals production experience. "As a former bench chemist, I spent significant time repeating manually intensive reactions," he said.
"As soon as I saw the CheMastery MVP I was
instantly hooked by the huge implications this platform could have for repetitive chemical manufacturing.
"Anna and Stefan are uniquely positioned, given their combined skill sets, to tackle a problem that has plagued chemistry for decades."
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments