One of Chicago's most cutting-edge startups is staying busy at the start of 2023.
Dimension Inx, a spinout from Northwestern University that's looking to combine engineering and biology with 3D-printed implants, is getting ready to launch its first commercial product after receiving clearance from the Food and Drug Administration.
This comes on the heels of a $12 million Series A the company announced on Wednesday.
The round was led by by Prime Movers Lab, with participation by returning investors KdT Ventures and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. New investors included Solas BioVentures, Portal Innovation Ventures and Alumni Ventures.
Co-founded by Ramille Shah and Adam Jakus and named a Startup to Watch by Chicago Inno in 2021, Dimension Inx developed a biofabrication process that creates 3D-printed implants that can repair human tissue and organs.
After raising $3.2 million in a seed round in November 2020, Dimension CEO Caralynn Nowinski Collens said the Series A proved to be more challenging. She described a clear shift in fundraising from being entrepreneur-friendly to being more of an investor’s environment, where a lot of people are trying to raise money and even good companies are having a hard time landing funding.
“It took us six months to raise, and on one hand I always expect it’s going to take six months to do a funding round,” she told Chicago Inno. “But what struck me most about this time around was that we had a number of interested investors and yet the urgency, or lack thereof, to move to a close and the pressure on valuations was very real.”
The latest round brings Dimension's total funding to $17.6 million.
Collens hinted that expansion of the company’s Chicago headquarters and of its manufacturing capabilities were considered while fundraising, and she hopes to have more news on that in the coming months.
With 14 employees currently, she said the plan is to double the company's head count in the next 18 to 24 months, adding that recent layoffs seen across the tech space may have even created new opportunities for Dimension.
“It’s not just the large tech companies that have been laying off, Collens said. "So have a number of the pharmaceutical and biotech companies. And while that’s disappointing for the state of where the market is right now, also hopefully that means that we’re going to find some great talent."
Product launch in 2023
A biomaterials platform that designs, develops and manufacturers therapeutic products, Dimension received FDA clearance for its first 3D-printed regenerative bone graft product.
Dimension will be ramping up manufacturing and production to be ready to get it in the hands of surgeons. By midyear, Collens hopes to have the first human experience with the product.
While Dimension plans to do a limited launch itself, the eventual plan is to leverage strategic partners and to find a distribution partner that can help increase market adoption over time.
