When BRIO Systems was founded in 2017, its main client was gyms. The startup provided blood tests for certain crucial biomarkers, administered by certified personal trainers; athletes would then get personalized nutrition and exercise advice based on their results.
The goal was to test for chronic and lifestyle diseases — and individuals' potential to develop them — and eventually map trends in those diseases over time.
"We had spent most of our life focusing on this chronic disease pandemic," said CEO and co-founder Boris Lipchin. "That was, in our minds, the most urgent thing to address. Then, we very rapidly found ourselves in a world where the biggest pandemic was this thing called Covid-19."
Lipchin knew it was time to pivot. He gathered his team and announced that their mission had changed: Instead of using its testing platform for chronic disease biomarkers, BRIO Systems would focus its efforts completely on using that platform to test for coronavirus. Specifically, BRIO would help workplaces get on-site testing for their employees, particularly in the manufacturing sector, where the workers are considered essential and employers have to think proactively about outbreaks.
BRIO has a network of laboratory and nursing partners so it can quickly get testing kits and nurses on sites. The startup's platform allows employers to measure both active Covid-19 infections through FDA Emergency Use Authorized-PCR testing, as well as previous exposure to the virus through serological antibody testing.
BRIO works with companies in some of the hardest-hit states in the country, including Florida, California and Georgia, Lipchin said. And because of the lack of access to testing and the delays in results that persist in most states, BRIO is plugging a critical gap: Its platform delivers results in three days or less.
"In many of those cases, we would detect positive cases and catch an outbreak before it crippled a number of businesses," Lipchin said. "I'm extremely proud of my team's ability to make immense sacrifices, work through the night, work through the weekend, really rise to the occasion. We take a lot of responsibility on our shoulders to help these people."
This week, BRIO got a boost to carry out that mission. The startup announced on Wednesday that it had raised $1.9 million in seed funding led by One Way Ventures, with participation from Techstars Ventures, Nimble Ventures, Castor Ventures (part of AVG) and angels including John Capodilupo, the CTO of device startup Whoop.
Some of that funding, which Lipchin said BRIO had been raising "for some time," has already been put to use in the form of new engineering hires. The startup is continuing to grow, building out its engineering team so it can scale up its coronavirus testing platform. Its clients include Harley-Davidson and Lifeway Foods.
"Our intention is to create this platform product that allows patients, employers, labs and providers to interact in a way that gets everybody their results quickly, but really gives respect to the patient experience, which is often overlooked in these products," Lipchin said. "Hiring a strong engineering team is going to be the backbone of that effort."
