Funding
The Cambridge Discovery Fund recently made its second investment, providing funding for the university spin-out, Sphere Fluidics, which is developing a technology platform in which water droplets serve as miniature test tubes.
The company aims to commercialise this picolitre droplet technology, which makes it possible to carry out large numbers of simultaneous reactions within small water droplets a fraction of a millimetre in size.
The picodroplet platform was developed by Chris Abell and Wilhelm Huck of the Department of Chemistry. When the droplets are merged with others containing, for
example, a specific chemical reagent, they effectively act as miniature reaction chambers, and can be exposed to a unique set of experimental conditions.
The technology has potential uses across fields including drug discovery and algal biofuel development. It offers greater control and automation and improved efficiency over existing techniques.
Frank Craig has been recruited as CEO, and the investment from the Discovery Fund will support the new company as it searches for its first customers and additional funding, with the objective of being self-sustaining within 12 months.
The Discovery Fund is one of three evergreen Seed Funds managed by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s technology transfer office. It provides proof of concept, pre-licence, pre-seed and seed investments to new ideas with commercial value arising from research carried out at the university.
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
