Chemical StartUps Series #23: ChemAlive

Please introduce the value proposition of your company. How will your company disrupt or dramatically change how things are currently done?

ChemAlive is a deep tech chemical software company developing a next generation SaaS platform to empower its clients to gain access to critical deltas in scale and scope of predictive analytics through quantum chemistry. Rather than relying on inaccurate and cheap cheminformatics and classical physics (force fields) offered by competing platform solutions, ChemAlive offers state-of-the-art modern physics (quantum) predictions that are accurate enough to guide experimental decisions, configured for experimentalist’s needs and deployed in a democratized setting. Current competing quantum chemical software is targeted at theorists and requires advanced knowledge and infrastructure to use. Easy access to this accuracy will substantially reduce operating costs for R&D and Process by helping experimental researchers choose the most optimal way forward in advance of experiments. ChemAlive is able to do this with its proprietary software that distributes these compute-intensive calculations onto the cloud. Distributive computing, along with re-designed algorithms, allows ChemAlive to address the accuracy-speed tradeoff problem and bridge the gap between current latency expectations for chemical software while delivering orders of magnitude more accuracy but also scope (new applications only quantum can bring).

For example, we have worked with clients to predict molecular color, electronics and reactivity, properties that can only be extracted from quantum chemical calculations. For color, we have reduced our client’s target molecular libraries from hundreds of possible molecules to tens of molecules that match desired performance criteria for a specified application in biological assays. This has saved them 80% of lab time, weeks of work and tens of thousands of USD. Calculations were executed in under twenty-four hours.

Perhaps most importantly, our platform is focused on full automation and democratization of quantum chemistry opening up totally new potential client profiles where non-experts can also access this increased accuracy. Our first software module, called ConstruQt (construqt.chemalive.com) aims to provide quantum chemical structural analysis of small molecules with a focus on pharmaceuticals research. This tool takes the simplest representations of a molecule (SMILES) and converts it into interactive and accurate 3D structures with prioritization by molecular energy. 

Who are your customers and how large is the addressable market for your products/services?

Our customers are across chemical R&D in every domain. However, our specialty is best suited to the performance chemical / materials industry including dyes, polymers and molecular electronics. The R&D Market is about 250 billion globally. The Chemical software market is about 1 Billion in software sales and is growing 15% per year. We are competing directly with companies offering a less accurate product with turnover of 15 to 20 million a year. Compared to Quantum Chemistry softwares like Schroedinger and Biovia, these are doing much larger revenues but using a software sale model rather than a SaaS model targeting expert theorists.

How scalable do you believe your company is?

We are shifting/upgrading the entire chemical predictive analytics market to a modern regime by making quantum chemistry accessible. Thus, we believe our client base is all of chemical R&D including perhaps 800,000 to 1,000,000 researchers globally operating in thousands of companies. As a SaaS, we can have this global reach. As we grow the user base beyond what it is currently, we are also preparing for the data revolution and working in lock-step with current trends and demands for open-science and data. We are building tools that deliver data computational prediction but that also store and curate the results to build knowledge and IP in the future. We are automating R&D and preparing for a future where 50% of R&D will be digital.

Can you summarize the journey of your company up to this point?

ChemAlive was founded in the last months of 2014 by Drs. Peter D. Jarowski and Laetitia Bomble. Laetitia and Peter met during Peter’s sabbatical at the EPFL in Lausanne, where the company retains its corporate headquarters. The collaboration was born through a mutual sense that the computational work they were doing manually, or through scripting, could be democratized through wrapping software to help chemistry be more efficient.

In 2015 ChemAlive had a demo up and running that showed how basic quantum calculations could be launched directly from standard chemical descriptors called SMILES format. The company then turned to building out its customer engagement as a contract research organization using its own internal software to deliver for clients and discover where the true value of prediction lives in industry. To date ChemAlive has executed 10s of contracts with many multinational clients in oil and gas and performance materials with a growing yearly revenue complimented by FFF investment.

With a skeleton engineering crew, ChemAlive built its early technology, first to a professional API, called ConstruQt-API (construqt.chemalive.com) in 2019 and then launched its complimentary frontend application, ConstruQt in 2020 (app.chemalive.com). The application had 100 registrants in just a few days after launch. This was accomplished in part by engaging with the Merck and Climate-Kic accelerators, as well as other Swiss Government funding, such as an Innosuisse Grant.

What is pivotal for your success going forward?

Going forward we need to bring in all the talent we have identified and consolidate them as a team. We have met chemists interested in sales, engineering, R&D and business. These bright people have contributed as full time employees, part time employees, interns and just for the hell of it. We now need to gel this raw talent into a workforce able to deliver on big challenging goals.

We need this talent because what we are doing is so complicated. We are working with various academic open source softwares with years of sometimes nightmarish coding that needs to be fixed. Other times, we are butting up against engrained resistance to predictive analytics by empirical scientists. We need a persuasive salesforce to overcome the poor reputation prediction has been given by our competitors using inaccurate methods. Capital will help us achieve the critical mass we need to let the world know what we are doing and convert our early success and positioning into a unique platform in a blue ocean area with the potential for massive recurring revenues and large corporate contracts through strategic partnerships.

Can you provide some KPIs that helps understand the size and growth of your company?

ChemAlive is already in the market in a freemium model. We are the first quantum SaaS with a good notoriety and network. With capital to grow our engineering efforts we will be commercialized in 2020 and profitable by 2022 via a combination of high value contracts and software sales. Our initial focus will be in Europe (2020) expanding directly to the US (2021).

How can strategic partners from the chemical industry or financial investors contribute to your success?

The company is now commercializing and improving its web application to expand its utility and reach. The company would like to scale its early successes by building out its engineering team by adding 2-3 engineers and also expanding its business team (1 biz dev, 2 sales). It needs dedicated people to reach out to academic users and as well as industrial partners to strengthen its network and create further visibility.

The company is seeking a consortium of investors to raise a 2 - 5 million seed round. We are already following a strategy of working directly with R&D teams at major multinational chemical companies that also maintain venture capital wings. Thus, we are ready to prove our technology in pilot prior to taking investment.

Who is the primary point of contact for investors and strategic partners?

• Peter Jarowski, PhD
• Director
• [email protected]
• +41 78 817 27 36
• www.chemalive.com
• https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/peter-jarowski-5b507644/

Disclaimer: The sole responsibility for this content is with the company profiled.

If you would like to profile your Chemical StartUp in this series, please reach out to [email protected]