Thrive Bioscience Raises $4.0 Million Seed Round to Provide Previously Unavailable Automation and Analytics to Cell Culture and Stem Cell Culture

BEVERLY, Mass., Aug. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Thrive Bioscience announced today it closed a $4.0 million round of seed financing from angel groups, strategic partners and industry veterans to accelerate commercialization of previously unavailable solutions that advance drug discovery, research and delivery of new therapies by improving one of the most important research processes – cell culture.

Investors in Thrive's first round of financing include Life Science Angels (Sunnyvale, CA), SideCar Angels (Boston), Triple Ring Technologies (Newark, CA), Optikos Corporation (Wakefield, MA), as well as numerous accomplished industry veterans and prominent angels, including Guy Broadbent of Argotec, former CEO of Xcellerex and former President of Thermo Fisher's Laboratory Products Group; Andrew Egendorf, inventor and intellectual property expert; Michael Finney of Finney Capital, founder of MJ Research and former CEO of Vaxart; Douglas Hansen of Resonant Capital and former President of Redwood Trust; Jerry Karabelas of Care Capital and former CEO of worldwide pharmaceuticals at Novartis; Stan Lapidus of SynapDx and founder of Cytyc and Exact Laboratories; Norman Sorensen, formerly of Principal Financial Group; and Willard Umphrey of U.S. Boston Capital.

Regarding the use of proceeds, Thomas Forest Farb, President and Co-Founder of Thrive, stated, "This $4 million financing, and the industry expertise of our investors, supports Thrive's experienced team in the development of its extensive product family, establishment of research collaborations, building a significant intellectual property estate and the launch of the Cell Culture Standardization Consortium. Thrive's instruments will take cell culture from the analog to the digital age and enable better, faster and more cost-effective research."

Alan P. Blanchard, Ph.D., Thrive's Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder stated, "When it comes to widely performed cell culture, laboratories are attempting today's science with yesterday's tools. Thrive will significantly advance the practice of cell culture with instruments that provide reproducibility, scalability and documentation.  Thrive's family of instruments utilize robotics and fluidics to monitor, maintain, and passage cell lines as well as run assays and generate large amounts of previously unavailable data. These solutions enable the development and delivery of new, groundbreaking therapies through improving cell culture processes, especially with stem cell and in conducting live cell-based assays."

About Thrive Bioscience, Inc.

Cell culture of human and animal cells is a fundamental research tool widely used in science and medicine. It is performed in over 120,000 incubators in more than 40,000 labs worldwide. Current methods of laboratory cell culture, are little changed from more than 60 years ago, and are now a major bottleneck. Thrive Bioscience, based in Beverly, MA and part of the North Shore InnoVentures incubator, is commercializing previously unavailable solutions that increase the speed, quality and cost-effectiveness of cell culture being used in growing stem cells, drug discovery and basic research. For more information, please visit www.thrivebio.com.

Thrive Bioscience was named one of the "Top 30 Life Science Startups to Watch in the U.S." and "NextGen Bio Class of 2015" by Biospace (http://www.biospace.com/News/top-30-life-science-startups-to-watch-in-the-u-s/351215).

Media Contact:
Thomas Forest Farb
President, Thrive Bioscience, Inc.
[email protected]
1-978-720-8046

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SOURCE Thrive Bioscience, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.thrivebio.com