Briefly Bio, a London based biotech startup addressing the reproducibility crisis in science, has officially launched with $1.2M in pre-seed funding. This round was led by Compound VC, with additional support from NP Hard, Tiny VC, and various angel investors from the tech and biotech sectors.
Tackling the reproducibility crisis in science
Science is currently facing a significant reproducibility crisis, with over 50% of preclinical research efforts failing to reproduce experiments, resulting in industry losses exceeding $50 billion annually. Briefly Bio aims to address this issue with software designed to enhance the reproducibility of lab work by helping scientists capture and share their work consistently and clearly.
Innovative software solution
As biological experiments grow more complex, crucial details often go undocumented, hindering scientific collaboration. Briefly Bio’s AI-powered software provides a shared language for experiments, ensuring consistency and clarity for all collaborators. The software converts existing experiment descriptions into a uniform format, automatically filling gaps and identifying errors, which facilitates efficient scientific collaboration and enables data scientists and automation teams to work more effectively.
Founders’ expertise
Briefly Bio was co-founded by Dr Katya Putintseva, Harry Rickerby, and Staffan Piledahl, who bring diverse backgrounds in academia, tech, biotech, and robotics. Prior to founding Briefly Bio, the trio worked together at LabGenius, a drug discovery startup, where they contributed to building its ML-driven antibody discovery platform.
Harry Rickerby, CEO and co-founder of Briefly Bio, commented: “Scientific methods are a bit like software code; they are a set of instructions that define how an experiment should be run. The majority of this ‘code’ is incomplete since writing up each experiment completely takes a huge amount of effort. Now, with LLMs, there’s a way to make these methods consistent without imposing on a scientist’s workflow. As GitHub helped software engineers collaborate and build on each other’s code, we think Briefly can help scientists and engineers do the same with their experiments.”
Future prospects and industry impact
The reproducibility issue in science is critical, and Briefly Bio’s solution has the potential to transform the landscape of scientific research. By making lab experiments more reproducible, the company is poised to enable more efficient and accurate scientific discoveries. The $1.2M pre-seed funding will be used to further develop the platform and expand its capabilities.
Positive industry reception
The launch of Briefly Bio has garnered positive feedback from industry experts. Dr Gena Nikitin, Founder of Miphic, described the software as “a revolution in documenting lab experiments,” while Dr Maria Anastasina from OIST highlighted its role in enhancing lab management and training. Suparna Kumar, a PhD student at Weill Cornell, stated that Briefly Bio has become an indispensable part of her lab routine.
Rob Harkness, CTO of Biosero, praised the software’s ability to standardise and automate lab workflows, addressing inefficiencies and high error rates associated with diverse workflow formats. Shelby Newsad, an investor at Compound, noted the importance of consistent and executable methods in science, emphasising that Briefly Bio addresses the core problem of reproducibility through its protocol-focused approach.
Background on the founders
Briefly Bio was founded by Dr Katya Putintseva, Harry Rickerby, and Staffan Piledahl, who met while working at LabGenius. Katya initially worked as a scientist in academia, facing challenges in re-using and adapting work from published literature. She later moved into data science and industry, needing precise data generation details for analysis and modelling. Staffan, an automation engineer, required complete lab workflow definitions for robotic transfers. Harry, who led new lab workflow onboarding, identified that many career struggles shared a common root cause: inconsistent and incomplete documentation of lab work. Together, they founded Briefly Bio to address this critical issue in both academic and industrial science.
Challenges and traditional approaches
Traditionally, scientists describe their lab work in their own words, which can lead to ambiguous and incomplete documentation. Briefly Bio improves this by converting descriptions into a clear, structured format, automatically filling in missing details. This approach allows tracking of how scientific methods evolve over time, providing a significant improvement over traditional text description.
Target customers and use cases
Briefly Bio’s typical users are wet lab scientists in early-stage research and development, both in academia and industry. The platform is also beneficial for those working in laboratory automation, enabling better collaboration between scientists and engineers. Use cases include reducing the time scientists spend on documentation, improving collaboration, and facilitating faster, more accurate automation of lab workflows.
Future plans
Looking ahead, Briefly Bio aims to open a public version of its platform for sharing experiments and protocols, allowing scientists to discover reproducible methodologies easily. This vision mirrors GitHub’s impact on open-source software development.
