Biobot Analytics, a technology company that deploys wastewater monitoring equipment and analytical tools to provide new insights into public health at the community level, today announced that it has raised $4. 2 million bringing the total amount of seed funding to $6 $7 million In response to the emerging crisis, Biobot has begun to deploy its platform to track the spread of COVID-19 and map its prevalence in cities across the U. Oh, S
The funding round was led by The Engine, a MIT-based venture company that invests in early-stage Tough Tech companies that solve the world’s most urgent problems through a convergence of cutting-edge science, engineering and leadership. The AmFam Institute Impact Fund has joined the round as a strategic investor. Previous investors Y Combinator and DCVC also took part in this round This capital will be used to support rapid growth of operations to address pandemic challenges and to fund additional market expansion and product development.
Biobot was developed at MIT, where the two founders, Mariana Matus, PhD and Newsha Ghaeli, combined their computational biology, wastewater epidemiology and urban planning backgrounds to develop technology that can provide sub-city human health data. Using anonymous data collected from sewage, Biobot’s platform can track health indicators that provide insights into drug use, the presence of viruses, environmental contaminants and nutrition.
“Doctors regularly use waste samples to understand, diagnose and take care of our individual well-being. We are deploying our technology to do the same at the population level, which is of tremendous value to government and private sector partners and will be key to improving public health and developing smart cities,” said Mariana Matus, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Biobot Analytics.
Biobot carried out its first commercial implementation of opioid analytics technology in Cary, NC. The company’s analysis provided local officials with accurate information on the use of opioids so that they could better manage productive interventions, reduce overdoses by 40% and reduce their associated costs to the healthcare system. Today, seven cities in Massachusetts are conducting initial opioid biobot studies.
“We are very pleased to support Biobot in accelerating the growth of their company The team has shown the potential of using our wastewater systems to mitigate the opioid crisis and now is the time to extend the approach to addressing other important health challenges, from COVID-19 and other viruses to environmental contaminants,” said Ann DeWitt, general partner of The Engine.
In March, in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard and Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Biobot launched a campaign to apply for wastewater from facilities across the U. Oh, S Its research protocol and findings from the initial review of samples from a large urban facility in MA were detailed in the MedRxiv Academic Paper, SARS-COV-2 titers in wastewater, are higher than expected from clinically confirmed cases. “The findings indicate that the prevalence of COVID-19 is orders of magnitude higher than confirmed cases suggest. National data covering 100 locations will be published later this month.
BOUT BIOBOT ANALYTICS
Biobot Analytics is a wastewater epidemiology company that transforms wastewater infrastructure into public health observatories. Its wastewater monitoring technology analyzes urine and stool samples to create a health database that is independent from hospital reporting systems, free from societal biases affecting those who can and cannot seek care and, most importantly, quickly adaptable to new and emerging public health threats. Find Biobot online at: www Biobot The biobot Oh, Io
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