Testing, testing
AngelList Weekly
 Annie Spratt The race is on. Tech startups across the globe are competing to deliver to the rest of us what Google employees already enjoy: regular at-home COVID tests.
At-home medical testing was gaining steam pre-pandemic and is now a red-hot market with more than two dozen companies developing at-home COVID tests.
Lucira Health, the first company to get FDA approval for a fully at-home test (with no mail delay sending to the lab), filed for an IPO last week and expects to deliver its test nationally this spring.
Lucira’s test is about as easy as an at-home pregnancy test: Patients swab their nostrils, stir the sample into a vial, and plug it into a small box. After about 30 minutes, lights indicate a positive, negative, or invalid result. The not-so-silver-lining: The test requires a doctor’s prescription and costs $50, putting regular checks out of reach for many.
Computer simulations suggest that if Americans got tested every one to three days, transmission could be reduced by more than 80% — enough to conceivably put a rapid end to the epidemic. But experts say the tests would need to come down significantly in costs — as low as 50 cents — for this to happen.
Last month FDA approved a second fully at-home test, from Ellume, that tests for antigens rather than RNA, making it cheaper and easier to manufacture. The good news: The test will be available over the counter and deliver results in 15 minutes. The not-so-good-news: At $30, it’s still relatively expensive.
One of the leaders in at-home medical testing, Everlywell, is raising money seeking a $1B valuation. The company offers a COVID test among its menu options. Like tests offered by Quidel and others, patients collect a sample at home and ship it to get results within a few days.
Others developing tests include AI company Gauss Surgical, Safe Health Systems, and BioIQ Inc., which partnered with Google to offer weekly at-home tests to the company’s 90k employees.
The upshot: Rapid at-home COVID testing is on its way. But, at least for now, it’ll cost you if you want to do it regularly. Hot startups hiring now 🔥
Funding and acquisitions Barcelona-based Landbot, a "no-code" chatbot builder, raised an $8M Series A led by Swanlaab. The company, which has Coca-Cola as a customer, says the pandemic increased demand for conversational landing pages as businesses look to attract more website visitors without needing a major in-house IT investment. The company previously raised $2.2M and plans to double its team to 80 people in 2021. Curtsy, a clothing resale app, raised a $11M Series A led by Index Ventures with participation from Y Combinator. The company, which started out renting dresses, allows women to list clothes, shoes, and accessories for resale. The app uses a combination of machine learning and human review to help the sellers merchandise their items, which increase their chances of selling. Curtsy previously raised $3.5M. Aerobotics, a South African startup that develops tools for farmers, raised a $17M Series B let by Naspers Foundry. Founded in 2014, Aerobotics uses drones and other robotics to track and assess crop health for fruit and tree farmers to boost production. The company is based in Cape Town with offices in the U.S., Australia, and Portugal. |
