Chemistry automation startup CheMastery raises seed round from Science Angel Syndicate and Undeterred Capital
CheMastery is building the infrastructure for chemistry by standardising and automating how research and manufacture are carried out in chemical laboratories.
Science Angel Syndicate and Undeterred Capital have led a seed investment round into CheMastery
CheMastery aims to revolutionise how research and manufacture are carried out in a chemical laboratory
Round supported by Britbots, Elbow Beach Capital, Fink Family Office, HERmesa, Kadmos Capital, Formic Ventures, Cur8, Key Ventures, Dhyan VC and angel investors
London, 13 December 2022 – CheMastery has raised a seed round led by Science Angel Syndicate, the deep science investor group, and Undeterred Capital. The round was supported by Britbots, HERmesa, Elbow Beach Capital, Fink Family Office, Kadmos Capital, Formic Ventures, Cur8 and angel investors.
Chemistry is one of the world's core industries, affecting 96% of all manufactured goods. In the UK, it is the second largest industry by value and yet it is beset with fundamental issues. Modern chemists develop the drugs and materials of the future using a painstakingly manual and repetitive process. It is estimated that about 80% of a chemist's time is spent on low skill, repetitive manual labour. Shortages in skilled labour and its ineffective use directly affect big industries such as Pharma, Biotech, Materials, Food, Cosmetics and even Academia on a daily basis.
CheMastery aims to revolutionise the way chemical research and manufacture are done by vastly increasing the efficiency of small to medium scale chemical production. This is achieved by solving the most pressing chemistry issues; repetitive manual labour, cost/time efficiency, irreproducibility and scale up issues. These affect 90% of all chemistry globally and waste up to 80% of project resources.
Led by Dr Anna Andreou and Dr Stefan Glatzel, CheMastery has laid the foundation for exponential growth aiming to make automation commonplace in chemical laboratories. The proceeds of this round will be used to expand the CheMastery team and its product offering. CheMastery will move beyond the prototype they developed as part of their pre-seed round to a pre-commercial demonstrator which will service the significant commercial traction for paid pilot trials they have in their current pipeline. They will also be moving to a dedicated and purpose-built headquarters that will enable chemists to work alongside their stellar engineering team in a single location.
Dr Anna Andreou, CEO of CheMastery said: “CheMastery is excited to announce our oversubscribed seed round led by the Science Angle Syndicate and Undeterred Capital. The expertise of Dr Johnathan Matlock (Science Angel Syndicate) and Joe Wilson (Undeterred Capital), will enable us to grow our revenue streams even faster! With this round we are very excited to be growing our team by 300% and moving into purpose-built premises that enable us to manufacture on-site and immediately broaden our product offering.”
Dr Johnathan Matlock CChem, Co-founder Science Angel Syndicate said: “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. Anna and Stefan are uniquely positioned, given their combined skill sets, to tackle a problem that has plagued chemistry for decades. I’m incredibly excited to support CheMastery on their journey to dominate the small and medium scale chemical manufacturing landscape.”
Joe Wilson, General Partner Undeterred Capital said: “Chemical production today is an antiquated process that is inefficient, costly, and slow. 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. The implications of such a reconfiguration would be immense and, if their vision is realised, the company could change how chemistry is done today.”
Jonathan Pollock, CEO at Elbow Beach Capital: “We’re delighted to participate in this round and to support this next stage of growth. Anna and Stefan have developed an innovative and scalable platform in a crucial yet underfunded industry, and I look forward to seeing CheMastery meet its significant potential.”
Dr John Gebeily, Partner at Kadmos Capital: “Automation and standardisation and powerful structural forces and great tailwinds for CheMastery. We believe that Anna and Stefan are exceptionally talented founders, who have a real chance of tackling the reproducibility crisis in Chemistry and revolutionising the field. We are very excited to be with them on this journey."
Dr Johnathan Matlock has joined CheMastery’s Board as the shareholder representative and Joe Wilson has joined the Board as investment director.
*Risk disclaimer: Investment in early-stage companies involves risks such as illiquidity, lack of dividends, loss of investment and dilution. For professional investors only.
Public relations enquiries
Dr Johnathan Matlock, Director
johnathan@scienceangelsyndicate.com
About Science Angel Syndicate
Science Angel Syndicate was founded in 2021 with a mission to source world-class scientific discoveries, provide unique scientific due diligence and help our members to identify exceptional investment opportunities that tackle the most important global challenges. Our collective knowledge helps our members invest in the most exciting companies of tomorrow, founded by leading scientists at the forefront of their fields.
Learn more about Science Angel Syndicate: www.scienceangelsyndicate.com
About Undeterred Capital
Investing in entrepreneurs solving entrenched, seemingly impossible problems. We invest early in deep tech and bioscience companies, often investing time ahead of capital. Our focus is investing at the pre-seed and seed stages, but we have also invested at the founding stage for certain teams. We look for entrepreneurs innovating in health, biological platforms, and applied robotics, as well as those that are creating entirely new industries.
Learn more about Undeterred Capital: https://www.undeterredcapital.com/
About CheMastery
CheMastery aspires to build the infrastructure for chemistry, to make science more robust and empower chemists to do high value work instead of repetitive tasks. CheMastery aims to establish itself as a leader in the chemical and allied industries by redefining how chemical laboratory work is described, captured and performed. It intends to end the chemical reproducibility crisis and increase laboratory cost/time efficiency.
Learn more about CheMastery: https://chemastery.com/
