STARTUP BATTLEFIELD 2023: In Diagnostics

Foreign Have your attention please welcome TechCrunch general manager and Editor-in-chief Connie loisis foreign Everyone good morning welcome to the Center of the startup Universe it's Great to see you thank you so much for Coming and joining us these next three Days uh you know we're so excited about This event you're going to be seeing Real journalism here in real time we're So proud of it we've got so many Newsmakers who are coming and we're Going to be asking them the fun Questions but also the tough questions Which is why I think we have all of you Coming and speakers who are interested Year after year in in sharing the stage With us what we're really proud of this Year is more than 12 000 of you Registered to attend this so thank you Again we are going to make it worth Every minute of your time I promise we Have a lot in in store for you today we Have Um well of course this main stage we Also have eight other stages that are Sector specific that are going to be Amazing AI fintech sustainability Robotics it's going to be great if you Haven't checked it all out yet there is A deal flow Cafe next door where we're Hoping deals are going to be struck at Least the beginnings of deals will come

Together we also have two stages of Start of Battlefield which of course is The centerpiece of the event and we're So excited about the contestants that You're going to see Um last but not least we have chats with Uh Lisa Jackson of apple and be a great Shaquille O'Neal and Kyle Walgren of Edsoma and Reed Jobs of Yosemite so uh To kick things off please welcome your Host for today the lovely and talented Us managing editor of TechCrunch Daryl Etherington thanks guys Hello welcome to disrupt as you just Heard this is our biggest show ever in So many ways it's huge huge in terms of Registrations huge in terms of stages There are so many stages so many I'm Going to list them all I'm going to read When I do that because there are that Many we have oh sorry we have the Builders stage that is where you can go Get practical advice on how to set up Your startup how to get funding how to Do everything there's the fintech one Space sustainability AI software as a Service hardware and security so all Those for the first year ever combine Into one massive event very exciting uh And you can't be in multiple places at Once obviously there's a lot of stuff But don't worry we will have VOD for the Stuff here and we will also have Otter AI taking notes everywhere and

Providing live transcriptions so it's Just in it right now as I'm saying this You can see it on the thing over here And we have that for every stage for the First time this year so that's great and Then we also have the pitch showcase Stage which is downstairs where startups Will actually get to pitch their Companies which is the lifeblood of what We do here at TechCrunch so be sure to Check that out we have breakouts Downstairs we have round tables so you Can talk with the people in your Industry who matter most uh and meet Maybe your next co-founder or your next Investor or all of that but right here We have for the first time ever again a Lot of first this year starting the show We have the main event the thing that All of you love and come here for which Is startup Battlefield so let's welcome Our first group of contenders for the Disrupt cup and also your host for the Startup Battlefield TechCrunch managing Editor Matt Burns Oh wow there's a lot of you here already It's only 9 30 in the morning 9 35 and You guys are packed thank you so much For coming disrupt is a huge show But I know why you're really here you're Here for the the startups thank you so Much for coming out I need you to know That the startup Battlefield class Represents countries across the world

You're going to see companies that are Attempting to change the world from so Many different vectors downstairs on the Second floor there are 200 companies Exhibiting none of them paid to be here We take no equity from any company that Comes to exhibit you need to go see Those companies skip Shack's interview You can see him on TV go downstairs and Meet these companies they're rad I Promise you're going to like them the Start of Battlefield 200 were selected Over out of 3 200 companies that applied We don't charge a fee for application or Anything like that I myself reviewed Close to a thousand applications and let Me tell you it is hard to narrow it down Out of the 220 were selected to pitch on This stage those 20 were selected as the Best of the bunch and you're going to See some really interesting companies I'm proud to say that TechCrunch will Award a hundred thousand dollar check at The end of the convention to the best Startup of the bunch and that's Equity Free and I hear that companies love to Carry these giant checks through Airports Okay let's get going I'm going to bring Out the judges but before I do that I Need to go over the judging criteria These judges are going to look and Evaluate these companies based on the Potential for impact that can either be

Social or financial perhaps a company is Headed to a big exit or they're going to Change the world and not make any money Doing it both are given equal footing Here so with that let's get going let's Have the judges come out right now I got some bios to read you're gonna Love them Let me tell you one of the best parts of My job is taking these long bios and Taking a black marker to them and Crossing off all their accomplishments But first we have poe poe Bronson's a Managing director of Indie bio and General partner at sosv coach Poe as he Sometimes nerved is is known as Was a finance and tech journalist Covering Silicon Valley for Wired the New York Times magazine an op-ed Contributor for the Wall Street Journal His science journalism has been honored With nine national awards and is the Author of seven best-selling books his Work has been cited in 185 academic Journals and 503 books he's also talking Later today on the sustainability stage Next we have Mark fiorentino partner at Index Ventures Mark leads Investments Focusing largely on fintech and Application SAS he's especially Interested in fintech infrastructure Virtualized payment workflows and SAS Tools disrupting Legacy incumbents Mark Is a board member of lead investor of

Index in a number of companies including Revenue cat Mercantile and cash Prior to index Mark helped build and Lead business strategy and finance at Stripe from 2015 to 2019 driving key Initiatives for sales operations growth And fundraising Mark is talking later Today on the fintech stage Next is Sarah Edelson partner at Excel Sarah joined excel in 2022 and focuses On early stage consumer and Enterprise Companies prior to joining Excel Sarah Spent several years as the head of Strategic partnership at Fair For fair Sarah spent four years on the Global business development team on Uber Working first on the ride share business And then on ubereats she has a passion For education and is also an angel Investor Next is Libby Wayman partner at Breakthrough energy Ventures Libya is a Business and technology leader with Experience and research product Development entrepreneurship corporate Strategy and Venture Capital Libby Served as the global director of Innovation for GE strategy in which GE Invested in over 20 billion dollars in Clean Innovation and generated over 300 Billion in Revenue prior to GE Libby Served as the director for the U.S Department of energy and their clean Energy manufacturing initiative last we

Have Steve Yang Steve is the founder and Managing partner at Kindred Adventures It's a seed stage 550 million dollar Venture Capital fund based right here in San Francisco Steve served as an early advisor and Angel investor since founding at Uber in An early Venture back of coinbase Humane Tonal Postmates color health and over 80 Other startups previously Steve was a Software entrepreneur and the co-founder Of several companies in the consumer Internet space let's give them a round Of applause Thank you for that but I'm going to you Give even more Applause to the very First company we're going to bring out From Carlsbad California in diagnostic Preventing or presenting for in Diagnostic is Dr Octavian florisco and Anna florisco come on out guys give him A round of applause Hi my name is Octavian and I'm no Stranger to Danger my biggest adventure So far was starting this company and Disrupting blood testing The blood testing Market is huge it's About 90 billion dollars Big problem is that it spread over Thousands of applications These existing blood analyzers could Only detect a handful of of indications And most customers can't really pay the Cost of ownership and in order to cover

The tests that they need in Diagnostics Is making testing easier and more Affordable not with a universal analyzer But by eliminating the analyzer Altogether We've done that by integrating into this Tiny device we've integrated This centrifuge basically the drop of Blood sample prep we've integrated uh Sorry we've integrated the Spectrophotometer and we this also Connects to your USB I present the quick blood test it takes A drop of blood and the device hooks up To your Phone with a dongle a USBC dongle and You get the results on the screen in This case we're testing for alt and AST These are two liver enzymes that tell You whether or not your liver is working Fine and the reason we're working with Alt and AST is because they complement The existing menus of blood gas Analyzers but they could only be Measured spectrophotometrically so we're Launching this into the veterinary space Where emergency veterinarians could use It to run rapid screens for anesthesia Or drugs before they admit the patients Um I will pass it over to demo let's go To demo and Anna will run a blood test For us So all you need to get started is in This box that Anna has she launches the

App on the phone which prompts her To connect the dongle You got to get the OS to let you in There you go then you take a device out Of the the pouch you open it up And you insert it into the dongle like That this is a phone blood test The device heats up on its own so you Can run it in temperatures that don't Actually match what you'd like and once It's heated you enter a patient ID you Enter operator information you enter the Test you want to run in this case we Have alt and AST And you also have the opportunity to Select the blood type so you could run Whole blood plasma or serum and there's A dilution factor in case you have out Of range samples over a thousand units Per liter So there's data and putting the results Or inputting that and she's putting one Drop of blood directly on the inlet And pressing play Awesome Okay back to presentation let's take a Look what's going actually before we do That let's go back to demo this is a Device she ran earlier so you could see The results on the screen right there That give you an indication of what's Going on so anything below 50 is normal For humans and anything above 50 can be Problems with the liver specifically if

You have acute liver failure it could Even go over a thousand so these are Intended these devices are intended for Veterinarian research use only but for The purposes of this demonstration we Ran a drop of blood back to back to Presentation So let's take a look what's going on Um in this integrated device we have a Spectrophotometer reagents first start By passing through a filter let me That the clicker is not really working Um we have an integrated filter that Traps red blood cells but releases Plasma with reagents in it so if this is A very modular design it's simple it Doesn't have pumps doesn't have filters It doesn't have valves and the plasma With the reagents goes directly into uh The cuvettes here If you want to change out the Application you just change the reagents In the filters these cuvettes are tiny They're about 50 nanometers so it's About the size of a grain of sand but Better than three percent Precision on Uh the path length We have an optic That takes light from a narrow band Led Splits it multiple ways and passes it Through the cuvette so we're currently Using two out of the four cuvettes which Allows us to expand the menu by two more Finally we have our

Microchip that we designed Oh let me There we go I'm going to stand over here A little bit we have the microchip that We designed Um that digitizes the opacity of the Sample and runs the data through SBI to Our USBC dongle So we ran these devices at UC Davis one Of the leading Veterinary universities In the world we ran 100 animal samples Across five different species and we Achieved an r squared of 0.97 for alt And 0.99 for AST These devices Um this this test represents about a 200 Million dollar market in the veterinary Space Like I mentioned the emergency and Critical care alongside the blood gas Analyzer is a first opportunity we also Have customers that are monitoring dogs At home Um for liver disease and finally we're Also interested in the research Market Where you could tail Nick a mouse get a Small drop of blood you don't have to Anesthetize the mouse or um or have a Terminal bleed and you could run your Liver toxicity studies But beyond this There's a broader Veterinary Market Which we call the rapid chemistry Segment so beyond liver Market there's a

Rapid chemistry segments which is about Two billion dollars now this is a pretty Interesting Market in the sense that it Has no low-cost competitors it has only About 20 analytes that are all generic There's no um there's no proprietary Antibodies or reagents to go after and There's no barriers to entry so after Liver we plan to expand the menu we're Working on creating kinase and a couple Other applications in order to get to Market The blood testing Market Got to wrap it up is much bigger it's About 15 billion dollars and we are Going to disrupt it by changing the Model from a razor razor blade to a Single-use disposable and I'll leave you With the video of our assembly system This is how we control costs we're Vertically integrated we've designed Everything and please come join us early Adopters please come help us out and Conquer this market and change blood Testing thank you thank you so much that Was wonderful give him a round of Applause Let's go to the judges poem we'll start With you so thanks congratulations for Having two liver enzyme tests but help Us understand wire technology say to Expand to a complete metabolic panel and Other analytes that you'd be looking for You classically need aptimers for every

One of those like help us find out what If the core can help us go from two Tests to this sort of at least 20 up to 50 that's in demand from the market Right now So um General chemistries generally Don't need optimers uh what happens is That it's a reaction in the plasma so You have to introduce reagents and those Reagents are you're not talking about Large antibodies or large molecules that You're going after it's small reactions So small molecules and so those all the General chemistries are non-proprietary We could change the filters out and we Could basically expand the menu in order To make a test that runs all of them at Once so it's a scaling issue that we Have to work on but the technology lends Itself to uh easy multiplexing so we're Able to hit all of those indications on A device that looks like this so it's Then still a chip for each test as Opposed to a non-reagent system So with this system On this chip and we can talk backstage About the possibility to do 16 on one Chip Thank you So I'm gonna let Poe stick to the Science questions because I'm not going To pretend to be a medical expert but I Can ask a little about commercialization So you're thinking about selling this

Through Vet Clinic from my understanding As a big part of this what is the ROI to A vet clinic anything about upfront cost Of buying the mechanism and then over Time using it and how do you think about That sales cycle to the vet practitioner Yeah so we found a few of a few amazing Niches for us especially in the Exotics Market so our selling point is that we Have small blood volume so you only need 20 microliters when you have a bird or a Small animal this is amazing for them And we have had great feedback from all Of the conferences we've been to we have About 600 leads already and people are Super excited about it so they said uh They would probably pay more than we are Actually charging if we make it targeted For Exotics that's only one of them but We have five other use cases that we're Happy to talk about Sir yeah maybe a related question to That assuming there's you know another Company out there that's coming at the Same blood testing Market from the Consumer human angle what advantages do You see for you all having the Veterinary as your sort of entry point And wedge well we love our vets we love Working with them so we want to be in That market and just exhaust every Possibility that we can have and that Gives us such an amazing training for us To check and break all of our limits so

We want to try and see where we can Extend and how can we expand and learn As we go so this is wonderful and once We know that we can tackle the human Market already and I'd like to add that One of the advantages is that they don't Have an instrument that they have to Install so this is they get a box they Use it and they run with it and so There's no training there's no uh extra Instruments so low Capital cost low cost Of ownership just use it alongside their Existing systems and they get more Information out of the drop of blood Libby yeah can you talk a little bit More about your pricing model you Mentioned a lot of uh vets and and Physicians that you're targeting Actually can't afford the analyzer so What can you talk about your your Pricing Model A little bit more sure Um I don't know that the cost of the Analyzer is necessarily the issue it's More the cost of ownership so you're Talking about the time it takes the cost Of the analyzer is an issue the Limitation that it has in terms of menu So you don't want to have multiple Analyzers this is a way of like Augmenting their menus without Additional analyzers the training Etc so There's a lot of cost that goes into it And we lower that cost tremendously for Them by making it so easy like a

Glucometer they use a glucometer even Though it has a limited menu because It's easy to use and they get good data Out of it How much blood do you have to draw Only 20 microliters so usually uh 50 Microliters is considered a drop so half Of that and then for a full you said you Can do 16 tests up to 16 tests on a chip Is there any incremental blood draw that You need for that or is it one one blood Draw at that at that yeah that's in the Works so we're it's definitely not going To be 10 microliters per analyte but we Don't know uh how much that would Actually so it might be a full vial no We won't get to a football there's a lot Of scaling that's still available in the System right now like we can make the Well smaller we can make the filter Smaller this is product one to get our Feet wet uh we can modularly scale Easily and then there's also a Significant amount of miniaturization That's still left in the system to get To the point where one drop of blood Gives you your complete metabolic Profile so if a veterinarian office or a A research lab they would have to swap Out those modules or have multiple Devices for all of these tests it's just Disposable so they don't actually have To do anything once the product becomes Available they can just buy it so

There's no reverse compatibility issues There's no analyzer that they have to Maintain or upgrade they just buy the Latest thing that comes out and use it On their phone so let's take one medical If they were to do you know not send Anyone out to any of the third party Testing offices they're doing it Internally can you speak to the unit Economics of each purchase that they Need to make and the consumption that They have per maybe you know 100 Patients thousand patients quickly Please Well so the unit economics would Probably make sense on a like service Model where these would go directly to The patient homes they'd run the test And the data would come back to them so From their perspective it's just a Value-add right they're upselling their Customers and say Hey you can do this Service we get a cut of it you get Better service and everybody's happy I'm gonna take the last question are you Are you guys dogs or cat people well Both both oh that's great that's the Best answer thank you so much Round of Applause Okay