Biotechnology tools startup Lucid Scientific completed a $3 million series seed financing round led by Dynamk Capital, the company announced Thursday.
Along with Lucid’s original investor base and capital from the Georgia Research Alliance’s Venture Fund, the company has raised $4.5 million to date.
The financing will enable continued growth for Lucid, which launched its RESIPHER product line in the spring of 2020. This life sciences tool helps accelerate the process of drug discovery by providing researchers with insights into cellular metabolism.
RESIPHER is a device that sits on top of cell culture plates and converts them into smart hand-held readers that give researchers information about how cells are responding to drugs and other treatments in real-time.
Lucid was founded in 2012 by Georgia Tech graduates Walker Inman and Richard Bryan, along with MIT professor Ian Hunter, while Inman was completing his PhD at MIT.
The team moved the startup from Massachusetts to Atlanta in 2015, where it's now part of Georgia Tech's Advanced Technology Development Center incubator. Researchers at both Georgia Tech and Emory use their products.
The funding allows the company to increase its commercial activities, both through distributors and by growing the size of its sales and customer support team, as well as expand production capabilities, said Inman, who is president and CEO of Lucid.
Inman said the company now has six employees and is actively hiring.
“Lucid’s platform provides a novel, affordable and easy-to-use technology for continuous monitoring of cell culture plates, providing a highly valuable tool for research and development activities,” said Dynamk Capital Managing Partner Dr. Gustavo Mahler, who will join Lucid’s board of directors, in a statement. “We look forward to helping Lucid expand the commercialization of their R&D solutions.”
Inman emphasized that Dynamk, a venture capital firm based in New York City that invests in life sciences industrials, is a great fit for Lucid. He said their introduction to the firm was facilitated by the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s life sciences team, which sponsored the company to attend an international industry convention where the founders met Dynamk’s partners.
“I want to express our gratitude for that department actually helping us make that connection, which was very material in our being able to get this funding,” Inman said.
