HandyLab raises $19.2 million in VC to create 8 new jobs this year
Ann Arbor-based HandyLab has 19.2 million reasons to be happy. That’s how much venture capital money it has raised to commercialize its research tools and hire eight new staff members.
Large amounts of money are pouring into Ann Arbor’s HandyLab as it prepares to commercialize its technology for conducting small scale experiments.
The firm raised $19.2 million to commercialize some of its instruments. That round of venture capital (the firm’s fourth) will pay for the sales and marketing buildup for their technology, which should lead to expanding the company’s staff from 48 people to 56 by year’s end. The company, started in 2000, was at 40 employees this spring.
“We’ve already begun expansion of the sales force,” says Mark Powelson, vice president of sales and marketing for HandyLab.
HandyLab specializes in conducting miniature laboratory experiments. The results are the same as if they were done in normal sizes but since they are done at a micro level, it greatly reduces the labor, time and cost needed to conduct them.
For example, the technology developed by the two former University of Michigan graduate students can do four nucleic acid specimen tests in 45 minutes. The same number of normal-sized tests can take between 2 and 9 hours.
Source: Mark Powelson, vice president of sales and marketing for HandyLab
Writer: Jon Zemke
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