JAKARTA (TheInsiderStories) - Southeast Asian venture capital firm, East Ventures, doubled down funding for Nusantics, a genomics technology company, in less than a year, the company announced today. In November of 2020, East Ventures has give a seed funding for the tech firm.
The undisclosed Series A funding will use by the biotech startup to produces saliva test for the COVID-19 cases in Indonesia. The company’ capability was develop two generations of COVID-19 PCR test kits that have a high sensitivity and specificity rate and able to detect multiple mutation of coronavirus in Indonesia.
The first generation of test-kits were distributed to 19 provinces across the country as a part of the Indonesia “PASTI BISA” movement. In partnership with state-owned pharmacy firm, PT Bio Farma, the firm has developed the second generation of test kits that cut testing lead time by making its diagnostic process 3 times faster.
Bio Farma has mass produced and commercialized both generations of test kits, with a production capacity of 1.5 million test kits per month that can be increased to around 3 million test kits per month.
“We plan to develop a new product, a test kit that can detect the virus in a salivary sample. By using saliva, diagnosing COVID-19 will be more efficient, less painful for the end user, and safer for medical practitioners. We are also continuing to optimize our test kits to be compatible with every PCR machine available in Indonesia,” said Revata Utama, the CTO of Nusantics, in a written statement on Thursday (01/07).
Since the seed funding announcement, the startup has opened Nusantics hub in Jakarta, the first skin microbiome laboratory in Indonesia, that provides testing and consulting services for skin microbiome balance treatment. The startup is also working with multiple companies in other microbiome related research and development projects, adds by the CEO, Sharlini Eriza Putri.
Starting this year until 2022, East Venture prepared US$325 million from its sixth fund $75 million and $250 million growth fund. To date, East Ventures has supported more than 300 startup founders and helped develop more than 160 startups including two Indonesian unicorn startups of around $4 billion.
In 2019, the firm also cemented its commitment to continuously support its portfolio companies and to build the digital infrastructure of Indonesia with the launching of its $250 million joint growth fund, EV Growth.
Some start-up portfolios that have been funded by East Ventures are Ride Jakarta, start-up companies in the fields of lifestyle, Waresix, Julo, Phi Integration, EV Hive, Nodeflux, Mechanic, Moladin, Sweetescape, Cicil, Katadata, Language.ai, Member.id, Fore Coffee, desty, and Finantier.
Written by Editorial Staff, Email: theinsiderstories@gmail.com
