Platform for connecting laboratories secures financing round for growth and international expansion
Berlin, 01.09.2015: today, labfolder, the digital laboratory notebook software for research closes a seven-digit growth financing round for further development of the software platform, and expanding marketing and international sales.
The lead investor of the current financing round is the Charite Biomedical Fund, (CBF-1) under the management of Peppermint VenturePartners. Previous investment partners VC Fonds Technologie Berlin (managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft) and Vogel Ventures as well as the Business Angels Jan Bohl and Dr. Wolfgang Vahrson are also participating in the current investment round.
„The digitization of research is an extremely attractive growing market“, says Dr. Joachim Rautter, managing partner of Peppermint“s CBF-1. „With our focus on innovative enterprises in the area of the digitalisation of Biomedicine, labfolder fits perfectly into our portfolio. We are looking forward to supporting labfolder in its growth with our expertise and our network.“
Together with new investors and partners from the laboratories, labfolder will push development in order to connect researchers and data, as well as to connect equipment, special software and laboratories globally. „The smart in-depth interlinking of data, devices and teams is the next logical step in research“, explains founder and CEO, Simon Bungers. „It allows scientists of all disciplines to document and evaluate research results in a better and quicker way – so they can focus on insights and innovation rather than tiresome paper work and documentation.“
Joris van Winsen, a dutch financial expert with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical sector, has joined labfolder as a late founder. He will support labfolder“s growth as new member of the management board.
„After entering the market successfully, we now have the opportunity to advance labfolder“s growth“, says Clemens Kabel, Investment Director at the IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft. „The focus on modularity of the platform and the accruing possibilities have a high scaling potential which we can leverage in collaboration with our partners from previous joint investments.“
„The feedback from the market is extremely positive and it clearly shows a growing need“, outlines Matthias Bauer, CEO of Vogel Venture, the investment vehicle of the media house Vogel Business Media. „The media partnership with „Laborpraxis“ and „Process“, our business magazines for the research laboratories, has shown that labfolder meets a central demand in the market. We are looking forward to expand our cooperation and our media support.“
In October, labfolder and its partners will present the intelligent, interconnected laboratory of the future in a special show called „Smartlab“ that takes place from October 6 – 8 as part of the trade fair Labvolution.
Link to additional press material (https://owncloud.labfolder.com/public.php?service=files&t=3509e02fc68dd928750d5478ce262cc2)
labfolder was founded in 2013 with the vision to help scientists to focus on their research. Labfolder is a documentation and organization tool for laboratory research. labfolder makes it easier to find data for answers to scientific questions by allowing the interconnection of the whole laboratory environment: data, teams, workflows, devices and material.
The two founders, Dr Florian Hauer and Dr. Simon Bungers developed the concept of labfolder during their PhD work in laboratories within Max-Planck Institutes in Göttingen. Simon Bungers already built up his first enterprise with the foundation and successful sale of the customization web shop „sox-n-boxers“. The third founder, Matthias Schäffner, who was leading the development as CTO, left the company in 2014. In early 2015, Joris van Winsen joined the team as „late founder“ and CFO.
labfolder received the EXIST scholarship of the Federal Ministry for Economy and Technology and was assisted by profund, the start-up support of the Freie Universität Berlin. labfolder was further distinguished in several Business Plan competitions (i.e. Science-4-Life and Business Plan Competition of Berlin Brandenburg). In October 2013, labfolder closed a seed financing round with Vogel Ventures GmbH, VC Fonds Technologie Berlin GmbH as well as Business Angel Jan Bohl, investing into the the start-up with a total high six-digit sum.
Kontakt
labfolder GmbH
Florian Hauer
Bismarckstraße 10-12
10625 Berlin
0049 176 24337833
press@labfolder.com
