Quartzy snaps $6.6M in new funding to bring some order to labs

Quartzy is yet another startup born out of frustration of its founders.

Jayant Kulkarni and Adam Regelmann met while conducting research at Columbia University. Frustrated by disorganization, poor communication, and endless administrative tasks at their lab, they came up with a solution. And thus Quartzy was born in 2009.

The Palo Alto-based online lab management platform Quartzy raised $6.6 million in venture capital, according to a regulatory filing. It raised a seed capital of $1.2 million in 2012, taking the total amount of funding to $7.8 million.

Quartzy provides an online suite of lab management tools for academics in the life sciences for organizing and managing inventories, tracking and placing orders, and sharing protocols and equipment with others.

Quartzy is free to use for scientists and makes money from suppliers.

“I would like scientists to be able to spend every dollar they have on actual experiments, not on lab management software,” said Regelmann in an interview.

“Quartzy makes money from vendors. They can either have Quartzy host their catalogs or participate in our marketplace, so users can buy directly from them through Quartzy,” he added, talking of the company’s revenue model.

The Quartzy solution is used by a slew of universities across the country, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of California, Yale University, Washington University, University of North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Tufts University, Duke University, and Columbia University.