When we last saw BioBots, company CEO Danny Cabrera took to the Disrupt stage to pitch his 3D printer for living cells to our panel of judges in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt NY 2015. Cabrera showed off his company’s debut 3D bioprinter, and actually printed out a living 3D model of Vincent Van Gogh’s ear.
Needless to say, we were impressed.
BioBots was named one of the finalists in the Battlefield, and while the company didn’t go on to win the Battlefield competition, Disrupt really helped BioBots kickstart the fundraising process. The same day the winners were announced, BioBots announced it had raised $250,000 in seed funding from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
And just six months later, BioBots raised another $1.25 million seed round from a handful of investors including Ben Franklin and DreamIt Ventures.
Since Disrupt, BioBots has grown the team from just 3 people to 9, shipped product to over 17 countries, and came out of beta with the Biobot 1, a desktop 3D bioprinter that retails for $10,000. In addition, the company developed a new software product and bioinks that should let its customers — primarily research institutions — to print a more broad assortment of tissues, organs and other biomaterials.
The BioBots 1 is a 12 inch x 12 inch x 12 inch cube that uses visible blue light to rapidly cure biomaterials quickly and, unlike some of the other curing technologies used in other 3D bioprinters, doesn’t cause harm to cells.
BioBots also just launched a biology wiki, which the company claims is the first biology-specific open repository for experiments, protocols and general biological information. With the wiki, users can learn about the different kinds of bioinks for extrusion bioprinters, protocols for interacting with the BioBot 1 printer, and read bioreports and participate in the research process.
Going forward, Cabrera tells TechCrunch that BioBots plans to develop new software and hardware advances that should help make the 3D bioprinting process easier, faster, and cheaper, which should help them expand their customer base and, ultimately, sell more units.
We are excited to see what advances come from BioBots over the next few years!
And, we can’t wait to see what awesome things the competitors in this year’s Battlefield have in store for us. Will your company be among the competitors in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt NY 2016? We are currently accepting Battlefield Applications from companies that are ready to pitch their company to our panel of incredible judges, but you’ll need to act quickly as applications close next Monday, February 29.
Disrupt takes place May 9-11 at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in New York City. Those not quite ready for the Battlefield who still want to attend the show can find more information about the show and purchase tickets here.
