Company of the Month: Clustermarket
Founded in 2015 by three students studying for their Masters of International Business in London, Clustermarket aims to introduce transparency into life sciences labs worldwide. Their online marketplace allows researchers to share access to lab equipment and services, and their online booking software, Bookkit, allows lab managers to control access to labs more efficiently.
In light of COVID-19, the tool is now helping allow continuation of research in over 5,000 labs worldwide. We talked to Clustermarket Co-Founder and Head of Sales and Marketing, Tobias Wingbermuehle to find out more.
GENESIS
The idea for Clustermarket was sparked when the three founders Niklas Friedberg, Tobias Wingbermuehle and Johannes Solzbach, listened to a guest lecture on frugal innovation. The key takeaway for them was that science clusters in the developed world can learn from principles adopted in the third world, where innovation has been achieved through more transparency and sharing of resources. The idea chimed especially with Tobias, whose previous background in sports science meant he had seen first-hand how expensive lab equipment and expertise is often under-utilised.
Tobias explains:
“The high cost of research equipment has traditionally always been a barrier for innovation in science. But in academia and small-to-medium sized commercial labs, there is plenty of willingness to share access to equipment and technical services. The issue has always been that there has been very little transparency and trust. It’s often very difficult to find out which equipment or services are available, and when. That’s what we wanted to open up.”
And so, the concept of Clustermarket was born, where a user can search for availability of a particular piece of equipment or service, and rent what they need, at the same time ensuring expensive equipment isn’t sitting idle.
Read the full article here.
