Transcriptic Files IPO Prospectus: Cloud-Based Robotic Lab Platform Revolutionizing Life Science Research

Transcriptic is an outsourcing provider that offers a cloud-based modern life science research platform. You may not have heard of it, but if you are aware of Google’s medical ambitions, you have certainly come across its name.

Transcriptic was founded by Max Hodak, a biomedical engineering student, just before his graduation. Despite his youth, he is truly a seasoned veteran in terms of experience.

Hodak enrolled at Duke University in the United States in 2007, officially becoming an undergraduate student majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Prior to founding Transcriptic, he accumulated all his professional experience during his college years. In January 2008, he established MyFit, an education management company that performed well; however, after completing its Series A financing round, he sold it to Naviance the following year. He then joined the internet company PBworks as a software engineer. Seven months later, he moved to another company, Inporia, serving as Chief Technology Officer until embarking on his second entrepreneurial venture.

Three Primary Reasons for Founding Transcriptic, as Recalled by Hodak and Compiled by VCBeat:

1. Due toHis Four Years as a Research Assistant at Duke University Medical CenterHe felt uneasy about the practice of recording experimental data in paper notebooks in the laboratory, as it wasted researchers’ considerable time in locating relevant data. Therefore, back in 2008, he digitized all experimental records by entering them into a computer and developed a software program that enabled researchers to conveniently retrieve the information they needed. However, this initiative was not well received by his colleagues, who viewed it as a waste of time. Surprisingly, a year and a half later, he found that many of those who had initially questioned the system were using it. Hodak recalled that this was a signal that encouraged him to continue exploring ways to improve laboratory efficiency.

2.The assignment during university was to develop a robot interaction interface.Hodak’s daily task is to establish an interface between the macaque brain and robots. The macaques must figure out how to operate these machines to complete tasks in order to receive juice as a reward. When Hodak conducted these experiments himself, he found that he performed even worse than the monkeys. He remarked, “In a biological laboratory, you spend all your time waiting for experimental results; that feeling is what it’s like to be a robot.”

3.Market products are expensive and inflexible.. Some large biotechnology companies have established robotic laboratories to allow robots to perform repetitive and labor-intensive tasks. However, these systems are extremely expensive! Moreover, the programming of these robots lacks flexibility and cannot be rapidly adapted to new protocols.

Let our robots do your science
Driven by the pursuit of personal dreams and the realization of value, cloud-based robotic systems have emerged.

Hodak’s team always introduces itself with the phrase, “Let our robots do your science.”

Transcriptic is dedicated to serving researchers with limited funding and time by providing remote, automated life science laboratories. These labs are equipped with robust computational capabilities, enabling users from around the world to operate multiple experiments simultaneously. In simple terms, as long as you have a computer, you can leverage Transcriptic’s cloud services to run complex biomedical research protocols and conduct experimental simulations directly from your desktop.

Users first program experiments using Transcriptic’s application programming interface (API), thereby converting each step of the experimental protocol into machine-readable code. Subsequently, customer instructions and all physical samples arrive at the Transcriptic laboratory. The experiments are conducted within a workstation sealed with Plexiglas, where benches are equipped with various instruments, all “directed” by a computer that receives work orders and controls the machinery. A robotic arm spanning the length of the bench transfers petri dishes among different instruments—such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) devices, microplate readers, pipettes, refrigerators, and constant temperature and humidity chambers—to carry out the experiments. Users can receive data from each experimental step in real time.

In the fall of 2013, the company began offering basic research services, such as genotyping of aged mouse specimens, protein quantification, and plasmid construction. By the summer of 2014, it launched its flagship product, the “Robot-Run Biology Lab.” In July, it unveiled a cloud-computing platform, “the Transcriptic Platform,” which allows users to design their laboratory protocols online, with Transcriptic’s robots handling the subsequent execution.

However, Transcriptic’s ambitions extend far beyond merely offering a menu of robotic operations; Hodak aims to make the platform accessible to users at all levels of complexity. Their vision is to create a “programming language” for life sciences, synchronizing laboratory procedures with computational operations. This year, the company will expand its production capacity and offer services such as DNA cloning at affordable prices widely recognized by the majority of those engaged in life sciences research.

Through this programming system, you can collect data on various reactions from an experiment and model this data to predict the optimal parameters. By recording existing experimental data, the cloud platform can automatically select the best protocol to execute. Even if a reaction fails, new parameters can be automatically selected for subsequent trials. This creates a closed-loop feedback system that operates without human intervention.

This service may not necessarily appeal to the majority of biologists, but for emerging biomathematicians and biotechnology startups, it directly links laboratory protocols with data. Transcriptic has already attracted some computer scientists without prior laboratory experience, who seek only to test their biomathematical models without needing to enter a wet lab.

Major clients include institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, as well as Y Combinator. The partnership with YC was established in December of last year, with the objective of providing YC portfolio companies with Amazon Web Services (AWS) solutions tailored for young biotechnology firms, thereby reducing their actual infrastructure costs.

Market Competitors
In addition to Transcriptic, other companies have also begun enabling biologists to outsource routine tasks to robotic laboratories. Around the time Transcriptic launched its cloud computing platform, Emerald Therapeutics, another laboratory based in California, introduced a similar service called “the Emerald Cloud Laboratory,” developing applications such as Western blotting.

In this one-stop online store, customers can order experimental services, analyze data, and collaborate with others. Since the beginning of this year, users have been able to choose from a list of 40 commonly used experimental methods, such as Western blotting for protein analysis or high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) for separating mixture components.

In a sense, these companies resemble traditional contract research organizations (CROs), but automated systems and data acquisition provide scientists with more granular details and greater control over experimental design. Some may argue that such sophisticated equipment drives up the cost of experiments.

However, Hodak stated that the cost of experimental services offered by Transcriptic, such as cloning and induced mutagenesis, is nearly identical to, or even lower than, that of conducting them in academic laboratories. Furthermore, this pay-per-use pricing is approximately half of what traditional research outsourcing companies charge. This is partly because Transcriptic’s workstations can operate without human operators; its two full-time engineers are primarily responsible for identifying software bugs and transitioning to new tasks. Additionally, much of the hardware is developed in-house.

Raised a total of $14.3 million in funding over three years
To date, Transcriptic has attracted interest from 10 institutional investors and numerous individual investors, completing four rounds of financing with a total amount of $14.3 million. Google Ventures participated in two of these rounds. Notably, over 60 investors contributed $150,000 through partnerships with the investment platforms AngelList and SecondMarket. Transcriptic claims to be the first company to secure such a significant volume of funding online.

As an emerging innovation, it inevitably invites observation and skepticism from many. Moreover, due to current technological limitations, not all experimental procedures can be fully automated. Nevertheless, robotic automation solutions for laboratories will undoubtedly become the mainstream direction for future experimentation, albeit through a somewhat protracted transition.

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