USA – BioFlyte, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based biodefense company, raised $1.25m in seed funding.
The round was led by Anzu Partners. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate development of its fieldable mass spectrometer that enables miniaturized, low-cost, and low-power detection and identification of airborne microbes and toxins in real-time. Led by Charles Call, PhD, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer, BioFlyte commercializes a new class of fieldable biological threat collection, detection, and identification solutions. Its first product is the z750 handheld collector, designed to provide CBRN Defense Forces and Emergency Response Teams with an advanced high-performance handheld aerosol sampler. The advanced filter design incorporated into the z750 has extensively validated sample extraction protocols, and is compatible with PCR, immunoassay, and fieldable mass spec instruments, as well as analytical methods associated with laboratory confirmation. The BioFlyte™ z200 is a breakthrough combination collector/detector/identifier system that uses matrix-assisted laser desorption and ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry to acquire a mass spectrum from the collected aerosol sample. The company also announced that Dr. Wayne Bryden and Mr. David Seldin have joined the company’s Board of Directors. Dr Bryden is a co-founder and CEO of Zeteo Tech and previously served as the Chief Science Officer at ICx Technologies (acquired by FLIR Systems) and as a DARPA program manager after many years of research at the John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Mr. Seldin is a managing partner at Anzu Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in breakthrough industrial technologies. 10/06/2020
