The Berlin start-up company labfolder, which is developing an electronic lab notebook, was selected out of 475 applicants worldwide to participate in the Accelerator program of the science and technology company Merck in Darmstadt for three months, starting today.
Berlin and Darmstadt, Germany, September 4, 2017 - Over the next three months, the Berlin start-up company labfolder will benefit from support, coaching and consulting after being chosen for the Merck Group’s global Accelerator. labfolder GmbH, which was founded in 2013, is developing an electronic lab notebook that will help researchers around the world manage ever-larger and more complex data sets more efficiently, replacing the traditional paper lab notebook. Merck is a leading science and technology company in healthcare, life science and performance materials. In the field of performance materials, Merck manufactures liquid crystals for screens, as well as laboratory materials.
Together with six other start-ups, labfolder came out on top out of 475 applicants from all over the world. Simon Bungers, co-founder and CEO of labfolder, said: “We are thrilled to be included in the program. It not only opens doors for us to the research-based pharmaceuticals industry, but also to the world of laboratory materials manufacturers. This combination within the Merck Group is ideal for labfolder.”
He continued, “At Merck, they know how to work in the laboratory, but they also know how to design and sell products for laboratories and what those labs need. We are also open to partnerships with laboratory equipment suppliers - such as with our SmartLAB application - and Merck is a great partner for us. They can help us to make our product more attractive from a laboratory supplier’s point of view, and at the same time, they can test our product directly in Merck’s labs from a laboratory user’s perspective.”
Munya Chivasa, head of the Merck Accelerator program, explains why Merck chose labfolder out of the multitude of applicants: “The labfolder team, much like Merck, is focused on developing solutions and products to help researchers succeed. We are excited to work with them through the Accelerator program to explore further developments.” To ensure that as many as possible of the current 20 employees of labfolder can take advantage of and experience the Accelerator program, the company will be sending two to three employees at a time from Berlin to spend a certain number of days over the next three months in Darmstadt, where part of the Merck Accelerator is located in the Group’s Innovation Center, which was opened in 2015. The other part of the Accelerator is located in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
Merck, one of the oldest pharmaceutical/chemical companies in the world, which was founded in 1668 and employs around 50,000 people, established the Accelerator program in 2015 at the two locations to support start-ups from various sectors that match Merck’s business areas of focus. The Darmstadt group works with start-ups in the areas of healthcare, life sciences and performance materials, while Nairobi focuses on innovations in digital healthcare.
Press materials:
Link to photos, videos & screenshots:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwwDla-2Gqp1Ym0zbmtzX1dBQlE
About labfolder GmbH:
labfolder’s mission is to establish a comprehensive and well-thought-out platform to assist researchers in making groundbreaking discoveries.
For scientific research teams who document their valuable results on paper and want to manage their ever-larger and more complex data sets more efficiently, labfolder is the go-to productivity and collaboration tool. It supports these teams in documenting important information and in gaining new insights. Unlike the traditional paper laboratory journal, our product makes it easy for team members to retrieve; exchange, discuss and validate data.
labfolder is used internationally by more than 15,000 researchers from all disciplines at academic facilities and at industrial and pharmaceutical laboratories. Teams of up to three users can use the cloud version of labfolder at no charge. For larger teams and advanced functions - such as academic workgroups and industrial laboratories - there are various pricing models: www.labfolder.com/pricing.
labfolder was founded in 2013 by Dr. Simon Bungers (CEO), a molecular biologist, together with Dr. Florian Hauer (COO), a biophysicist. Yannick Skop (Managing Director and CCO) and Mario Russo (CTO) joined the management team later. The growing demand for digital solutions in the regulated field of laboratory applications has led to continuous growth of labfolder GmbH, which is supported by investors including Peppermint Ventures, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, Vogel Ventures and an expert panel of business angels. labfolder GmbH has a master contract with the Berlin Institute of Health (BIH) under which BIH members at Charité University Medicine Berlin and at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch are able to use labfolder’s electronic lab notebook, contributing to a clear advance in the digitalization of scientific work processes at the Charité and the MDC.
