Portfolio company updates including funding announcements, product launches, and more
New Anzu team member in Tampa
A warm hello from Boston!
My name is Tayo Sanders II, and I predominantly investigate opportunities in the life sciences as a Senior Associate on Anzu’s investment team. Today, alongside Jenna Abelli, Principal, I am excited to introduce a recent addition to the Anzu portfolio: CytoTronics.
Executive Summary:
Today, much of drug discovery relies heavily on end-point optical assays (which is a fancy way for saying looking at a cell culture experiment). Essentially, we add a drug candidate to a cell culture well, wait hours to days, stain the cells with a fluorescent die that indicates death, and then count the dead cells under a fluorescent microscope. (You may remember a variant on this basic exercise from high school science with a Petri dish). This approach is largely used because it is relatively cheap and easy, but this process gives us almost no insight into how the drug is specifically affecting the cell and often leads to drugs that fail later in the development process.
We are excited about CytoTronics because they are changing the way we look at cell cultures with a technology that enables the observation of individual cells as they interact with their environment. With CytoTronics’s intelligent cell culture plate, cellular movement, attachment, division, metabolism, and electrical signaling are continuously recorded for every cell in the culture without the need for dyes or a microscope. In addition to reducing the time and capital it takes to discover an effective drug, the technology unlocks a range of new insights into cancer, neuron and cardiomyocyte function (the muscle cell of the heart), gastrointestinal disease, wound healing, and beyond that could lead to entirely novel avenues of therapeutic development.
Technology:
The key to CytoTronics’s broad capabilities stems from the circuitry embedded in each well of their smart well plate. Using standard semiconductor processing techniques, the team produces a semiconductor array that sits beneath growing cells. By selectively activating the circuitry in this array, electronic “images” of various cell measurements can be generated without the need for any optics. Cells within a well can also be specifically permeabilized (making their membranes more permeable, aka, able to take in surrounding material like DNA) to deliver genetic material or patterned using the same flexible circuitry.
Market:
CytoTronics’s platform is the only technology known to us that is capable of measuring cell growth kinetics, cell attachment, metabolic function, and electrophysiological signaling. The addressable market for CytoTronics sales and services is large and growing: cell-based assays are used throughout the drug discovery and biological research, a total market of $32B growing at an annual rate of 10.2%; $19B for low-throughput research and $13B for HTS. Additionally, the proprietary insights CytoTronics can generate opens the door to novel functional screening for specific disease areas such as irritable bowel disease (IBD) where the cell-to-cell attachment is a critical parameter ($20B treatment market), or cancer where metabolic function changes with cell state (>$100B treatment market).
How Anzu can support a company at this stage:
In the few short months since the company closed its Seed round with Anzu, the team has successfully transitioned out of their Harvard lab into a biotech incubator space in the heart of Boston and hired senior talent across software development, electrical engineering, cloud architecture, data science, and biology. Looking forward, CytoTronics is focused on bolstering its expertise in AI/ML to ensure the rich data sets collected by the platform can be leveraged to generate novel drug discovery insights. Additionally, the company is selectively engaging academic and biopharma partners to better prioritize feature development and disease market focus. The team is open to engaging with any contacts that may be relevant in drug discovery, bioinformatics, or screening.
We are thrilled to welcome CytoTronics to the Anzu portfolio, including having Jenna Abelli join the CytoTronics board of directors, and we are eager to work alongside Executive Chairman Douglas Kahn and the Cofounders Jeffrey Abbott, CEO, Vince Wu, CTO, and Duane Sword, CBO throughout this journey.
PORTFOLIO COMPANY UPDATES
6K Announced a $102M Series D Funding First Close and Partnered with Morf3D to Qualify Metal Powders for Additive Manufacturing
6K, a leader in the sustainable production of engineered materials for lithium-ion batteries and additive manufacturing produced from its UniMelt® plasma technology, announced it has raised $102 million in its Series D funding first close. The round was led by Koch Strategic Platforms (“KSP”), a subsidiary of Koch Investments Group, an investment arm of Koch Industries, with participation by investors Energy Impact Partners, Albemarle, HG Ventures, as well as participation by 6K’s existing investors. The Series D proceeds will fund production expansion for premium 3D metal powders in its 6K Additive division and accelerate the deployment of cathode production plants in its 6K Energy division.
6K’s CEO Aaron Bent appeared on Fox Business to discuss the news. The announcement was also covered in 3Dprint.com, New Electronics and more. You can get full details on the funding in the press release here.
6K Additive, a division of 6K, also announced that it is collaborating with Morf3D, a solution integrator leader in additive manufacturing for aerospace innovation, to qualify metal powders for additive manufacturing. Through this partnership, 6K Additive’s metal powders will be approved for use by Morf3D’s aerospace and defense application customers. Throughout the qualification process, Morf3D will manage the printing, characterization, post-processing, and data generation framework in order to qualify 6K Additive’s sustainably produced powders.
Azumo Raised $30M in Funding to Fuel Growth of Next Generation LCD 2.0TM Display Technology
Azumo, a breakthrough display technology company, announced that it raised $30 million in new financing led by Anzu Partners with additional funding from SABIC Ventures, VectoIQ, Dipalo Ventures and Energy Foundry. This round of funding will accelerate Azumo’s international expansion, increase its manufacturing capabilities and help launch new products featuring its low power LCD 2.0TM technology.
Labcorp and Weavr Health Launched a First-of-its-kind At-home Collection Device for Diabetes Risk Testing
Labcorp (NYSE: LH), a leading global life sciences company, launched an at-home collection kit through Labcorp OnDemand™ that measures hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) from a small blood sample to help determine diabetes risk.
Labcorp is the only commercial laboratory to provide HbA1c testing using a new, cutting-edge collection device from Weavr Health, a diagnostics company that provides remote biofluid collection devices to extend access to health and wellness testing. In addition, Labcorp is the first and only laboratory to receive approval from the New York State Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program for testing using the Weavr Velvet™ blood collection device. This allows for the Labcorp OnDemand Diabetes Risk test to be available nationwide.
NUBURU and Essentium Partner to Launch the First Blue Laser-Based Wire Feed Metal 3D Printers
NUBURU, the industry leader in high power and high brightness industrial blue lasers, and Essentium Inc. (“Essentium”), a worldwide leader in industrial additive manufacturing (AM), announced a partnership to develop and manufacture a blue laser-based metal AM platform. The new Essentium printer will enable manufacturers to create production-grade metal parts with high resolution and fast throughput.
GelSight Announced the Release of GelSight Mobile™ 2.4 and Expanded its Global Reach in Target Markets Through New Distribution Partnerships
GelSight, a pioneer in tactile intelligence technology, announced the release of GelSight Mobile™ 2.4. This software update for GelSight’s handheld mobile devices provides new features such as shot peen measurement and enhanced pit detection and expands applications of GelSight Mobile in quality inspection, production line metrology, and maintenance and repair operations (MRO) workflows. The news was covered in Metrology News.
GelSight also announced that it has signed agreements with four new distribution partners to extend its reach and increase brand awareness in new geographies across Europe and Asia. The new distribution partners include Everest Polska, RMI s.r.o, Altair Consulting SA, and E2-Holdings Pte. Ltd.
Kyle joins Anzu Partners as a Director of Accounting assuming responsibility for Finance and Accounting for several of our portfolio companies.
Kyle comes to Anzu from Load King Manufacturing Co. where he severed as Director of Finance, where he led their entire accounting and financial reporting function. His previous roles included cost accounting and financial reporting at Gulfstream Aerospace and Daniel Defense.
Kyle is a CPA and CGMA (Chartered Global Management Accountant) with a strong background in accounting, financial reporting, forecasting, and analysis.
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ABOUT ANZU PARTNERS
Anzu Partners is an investment firm that focuses on industrial and life science technology companies with the potential to transform their industries. Anzu works with entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize technological innovations by providing capital alongside deep expertise in business development, market positioning, global connectivity, and operations. For more information, please visit https://anzupartners.com/.
The information contained in this newsletter is being provided by Anzu Partners for informational purposes only. The information was obtained from various sources, but Anzu Partners cannot assure its accuracy. This is neither an offer to sell nor a solicitation for an offer to buy an interest in any fund managed by Anzu Partners. Any such offer or solicitation will only be made to qualified potential investors pursuant to a private placement memorandum. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss.
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