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OPT Industries has raised $15 million in a Collection A funding spherical led by enterprise capital agency Northpond Ventures.
The MIT spin-out has developed a proprietary additive manufacturing system which it scaled up throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to fabricate its InstaSwab COVID testing swab. A 14,000-square-foot manufacturing facility was opened final 12 months, and the corporate has now attracted $15m in funding. UK-based level of care diagnostics firm LumiraDz has additionally added the InstaSwab to its record of authorised naval swabs for COVID-19 testing.
OPT Industries’ early success has been constructed upon seven years of R&D work at MIT which noticed the event of its RAMP roll-to-roll 3D printing platform, which is claimed to allow the printing of ‘steady supplies at limitless lengths with micron-level precision.’ The primary product to be manufactured and made accessible to market with this expertise is the InstaSwab, which OPT says is more practical in bacterial pattern elution and viral pattern elution. OPT is assured its expertise will even be relevant for merchandise within the automotive and client items industries.
“As a sophisticated manufacturing firm, we see the worth in constructing micro-scale applied sciences that clear up macro-scale challenges,” commented Jifei Ou, founder and CEO of OPT. “OPT works with prospects to design and manufacture a novel vary of metamaterials and merchandise for the healthcare, automotive, cosmetics and client items industries and past. We’ll leverage the brand new financing to handle the demand for InstaSwab, gasoline product growth, scale operations and develop the staff.”
“Within the area of fabric science, metamaterials is a fast-developing space that holds huge untapped potential,” supplied Andrea Jackson, Director at Northpon Ventures. “OPT’s platform is uniquely able to designing supplies with superior properties and superior efficiency throughout a variety of functions together with absorption, cushion, insulation and extra. The InstaSwab – manufactured from exactly engineered fibrous constructions, every thinner than a human hair – exemplifies one of many standout improvements in novel metamaterials. OPT’s expertise enabled the design of a extra delicate medical diagnostic take a look at, leading to real-world affect on affected person care.”
Current buyers Crosslink Capital and the MIT-affiliated E14 Fund additionally participated within the funding spherical.
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