ZAGENO, the leading enterprise marketplace for lab supplies, today announced it raised a $20 million Series B round led by General Catalyst, with follow-on investment from Grazia Equity and Capnamic Ventures. ZAGENO curated more than 8 million research materials and products from premium manufacturing brands on its online platform to serve this $130 billion lab supply market. The company will use the new funding to substantially grow its team in the United States, as well as in Germany and the United Kingdom.
“Our mission is to accelerate innovation to make it easier for researchers to develop medicines, therapies and scientific advancements. We’re thrilled to announce this latest round of funding, which will enable us to fulfill this goal,” said Florian Wegener, co-founder and CEO of ZAGENO. “Expanding our Cambridge and Berlin-based teams is one of our top priorities. We look forward to working closely with the many incredible labs, researchers and purchasers of biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the Greater Boston area, as well as Germany, the United Kingdom and beyond.”
As former researchers, ZAGENO’s team knows first-hand how difficult and time-consuming it can be to procure the right equipment required for laboratory experiments. Thanks to this inside perspective, ZAGENO goes beyond transactions by compiling product specifications in one place, making it easy to compare and contrast items by category, brand and price. ZAGENO’s platform brings much-needed transparency to biotech purchasing with its proprietary Scientific Score, a best-in-class product rating system offering users unbiased, peer-reviewed ratings to support accurate purchasing decisions. For suppliers, ZAGENO’s platform enables streamlined access to scientists and researchers across academia, pharmaceuticals and biotech, making it easier for them to reach the customers they need most.
Spencer Lazar, Partner at General Catalyst and member of ZAGENO’s Board of Directors, said: “ZAGENO is well positioned to revolutionize the $130 billion biotech market with its much needed one-stop shop for biotech and pharmaceutical purchasers. We are proud to support the team as they evolve and simplify the procurement process so that life science researchers can spend more time doing what they do best: innovation and discovery.”
Alec Rauschenbusch, Founder and Managing Director at Grazia Equity, added: “We’re proud to continue our support of ZAGENO and its mission. We’re impressed by the talent ZAGENO has already brought on board, and the company’s rapid expansion proves there’s a real need for their solution in the scientific community. We’re excited to see what the company’s next chapters hold.”
By utilizing the ZAGENO platform, researchers are able to save as much as 1.5 hours per order, freeing them to focus on their research rather than their inventories. Just this month, ZAGENO’s platform was awarded Frost & Sullivan’s 2019 North American Enabling Technology Leadership Award for the seamless user experience it provides to all key stakeholders in the life science research industry.