Sepehr Kiani
Watertown, MA (USA)
Role(s):
C-Level Executive (CEO, CFO, etc.)
Fluent BioSciences Inc
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Startup
Location:
Watertown
Industry:
Bio-Technology
Year Founded:
2018
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Business Stage:
Creation/Idea
Entity Type:
"C" Corporation
Description:
There is a gold rush mentality driving the incredible increase in the number of drugs going to trial. Fluent BioSciences’ proprietary single cell technology is an enabling tool to increase the quality and quantity of drugs under test massively.
Therapeutics companies sift through millions of compounds with the hope of finding the right combination that will be life changing for suffering patients. The drug development pipeline, i.e., mining for drugs, is a slow and expensive process where success is not guaranteed. Yet $40B was spent in 2016 alone in the hunt for the right compound. Better tools for early molecular testing in cell-based models is a game changer. Fluent’s breakthrough "instrument-free" platform is just that tool, as its flexibility allows for a massive scale to meet the big data demands of the drug companies. Fluent's business model is to sell its reagents and informatics tool-set into this gigantic market.
Fluent started operations mid-2018. In that brief time, we have established laboratory facilities, secured key IP, identified target markets (non-regulated), developed two molecular applications to a pre-alpha level (with our first purchase order shipped in November), established multiple partnerships, and filed for 3 SBIR grants. The multi-billion dollar markets Fluent is focused on have total SAM's of over $700M, where Fluent's core platform is uniquely positioned to conquer. Also, our micro-self-assembly technology has no complex user side instrumentation to develop thus the time to market, total development cost, and time to exit will be short. Comparable startup exits in this segment are between $50M and $300M in the past few years.
We are seeking $1.5M in seed capital, which is on top of the $250K of preseed raise from the founders, in the form of a convertible note. We expect this to be sufficient to achieve the commercial launch of our platform.
Fluent's team is led by Dr. Sepehr Kiani an MIT serial entrepreneur with over 22 years experience in both building start-up businesses (+$100M exit and IPO) and leadership in large mature enterprises. The team taps from the best scientists in the Boston area with the leadership team coming from Harvard, MIT, and Baylor.