CheMastery, a startup aiming to increase the efficiency of chemical research and manufacturing, has secured an oversubscribed “multi-million-pound” seed funding round.
The London-based startup is developing processes to automate the repetitive and time-consuming manual elements of chemistry
The company estimates around 80% of the average chemist’s time in the lab is spent on low-skill manual duties, which slows down the progress of industries such as biotech, life science, food, and pharmaceuticals.
CheMastery’s automated technology will target small to medium-scale chemical production labs. The company declined to disclose the exact amount raised.
“With this round, we are delighted to be able to grow our team by 300% and move into purpose-built premises that enable us to manufacture on-site and immediately broaden our product offering,” said Dr Anna Andreou, CEO of CheMastery.
The round was led by Science Angel Syndicate, an investment group focused on the deep science industry, and Undeterred Capital.
“As a former bench chemist, I spent significant time repeating manually intensive reactions. As soon as I saw the CheMastery MVP I was instantly hooked by the huge implications this platform could have for repetitive chemical manufacturing,” said Dr Jonathan Matlock, co-founder of Science Angel Syndicate.
“I’m incredibly excited to support CheMastery on their journey to dominate the small and medium scale chemical manufacturing landscape.”
The funding round also featured participation from Elbow Beach Capital, Britbots, HERmesa, Fink Family Office, Kadmos Capital, Formic Ventures, Cur8, Key Ventures, and Dhyan.
“Chemical production today is an antiquated process that is inefficient, costly, and slow,” said Joe Wilson, general partner at Undeterred Capital.
“While improvements in chemistry are typically incremental, CheMastery is aiming for a fundamental restructuring of the research and manufacturing process for chemicals by developing a system to increase chemical throughput while minimising complexity.”