With less than one week until its second Crowdcube campaign comes to an end, ioLight is currently nearing its initial £250,000 funding target. This initiative comes just two years after the company raised £242,180 from 249 through the equity crowdfunding platform.
The company, which was founded in 2014 by Andrew Monk and Richard Williams. The company is the maker of a high-resolution portable microscope that displays images directly on tablets or smartphones. The microscope is considered among the first of its kind in the UK and delivers a resolution of better than 1μm. Among ioLight’s customers are Crowdcube fellow alum, The Eden Project, along with universities, schools, vets, pathologists, and micro-engineering companies. ioLight noted that the microscopes are priced at £700, with gross margins of 55-70% depending on sales commission.
“Good science relies on making primary measurements on samples in their environment. Yet for years scientists have had to collect samples in the field and take them back to a lab microscope for analysis. The ioLight microscope solves this problem capturing beautiful high-resolution images onto a tablet or phone anywhere. As well as improving the quality of science, it saves the cost and time of returning to site to collect better samples.”
In a recent update, Monk shared details about the company’s latest research:
“Recently I noticed some brown marks on the skin of my hands. I went to my doctor and he said ‘I am afraid you are just getting older!’ However, I was relieved to know that the marks are not skin cancer as I feared. If they were I may have been referred to a dermatologist to take a skin biopsy. The biopsy would have gone to the lab while I waited anxiously to find out whether or not I had skin cancer. We are working with a pathologist in New York State who would like to be able to mount biopsies on a slide and look at them in his consulting room while the patient is still there. Within 15 minutes he could reassure the patient that there is probably nothing to worry about or book treatment immediately if he is concerned. Proper lab analysis is still needed to confirm the diagnosis, but the patient is reassured and the clinician can make best use of scarce resources in the health service.”
Funds from ioLight’s second campaign will be used for recruit sales and admin people; sales and marketing PR and exhibitions; product development to increase sales. The campaign is set to close next Friday (March 25th)
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