Y Combinator invests in HappiLabs to help scientists shop smarter
techcrunch.comHappiLabs is right that pricing is all sorts of messed up across the sciences. That anecdote about labs in the same building having different pricing is all an all too common story I hear from plenty of folks in the lab.
I see time getting wasted every week, and not just from folks managing the lab. Often, as soon as the weekly planning meeting ends even scientists will get out their laptops and start bouncing between VWR, Fisher, Sigma, etc's. websites to figure out where the best prices are, how long it'll take to get what they want, and shipping costs. The fun part is when the stuff arrives and they realize their inventory count was off and they're actually out of something they thought they had in stock...and then it's back to the same old websites.
It's good to see YC investing more towards solving this problem. I know Quartzy (YC S11 - https://www.quartzy.com/) has been working on this problem too, a bunch of labs I work with are using them for this same issue. They have a ton of partnerships with suppliers which has allowed them to consolidate all those vendors into one place. This has solved a lot of that price hunting, but I think there's plenty of room to expand with more automated inventory management since that's really at the heart of a ton of supply issues.
Honestly, thinking about it, there's a lot of stuff in the lab that automation would help with beyond the experimentation part which gets the majority of attention at the moment.
What would you like to see more automated on the inventory management side?
Have any examples in mind?
Well, for one I’d really love to see even more improvements in recognizing supply usage. As near as I can tell there is nothing out there that’s doing the job. Most inventory management still requires someone in the lab to track and report. There’s a lot of barcode-based solutions where folks scan stuff out, but people are so busy that this either never gets pick-up in the lab or not enough people commit to it and you might as well not even bother with the system.
Something that could track the removal/use of products without needing so much handholding or constant verification would save so much time and avoid so many urgent orders.
Also, something that ties together ELN work and related supplies alongside inventory, and that adjusts inventory levels and helps with reorder alerts at particular thresholds. That would smooth a lot of the pain around planning. Like if something could alert me that a reagent/consumable/chemical was out or low before I was about to commit to a project it’d sure avoid a lot of urgent orders which can be a huge cost driver due to shipping costs or having to pay more than average because only one vendor doesn’t have something on backorder or they’re the only ones who can ship in time to keep things moving.
“What some other companies have done is they’ll try to build a tool and give it to all the lab managers..."
Quartzy?
Looks like YC is seeing margin in selling software and not products. Fun to watch if VCs will like this new model better with a profitable company.
We put a pricing search engine in Lab Spend[1] so researchers can easily get an idea of what they should be paying.
Researchers can search for products and see a price distribution to help avoid a lab in your building paying half for the same product.
I suspect the biggest obstacle here is overcoming bureaucratic obstacles like vendor approval. Also, PIs and universities don't have a strong incentive to bring down costs. Their (both institutions and PIs) pay is tied to grant money brought in and lower costs mean smaller grants.