Local biotech firm Grenova announces capital raise, to open overseas showroom

Grenova CEO Katherine Marrs. Marrs joined the company in 2023. (Photos courtesy Grenova)

A homegrown biotech firm just scored a new cash infusion that it plans to put toward product development. 

Grenova, which manufactures devices for the washing and recycling of plastic pipettes and microwell plates used in laboratories, announced last week its closure of an unspecified amount of new capital. 

Grenova CEO Katherine Marrs remained tight-lipped on financial terms of the round, declining to comment on the amount of money raised, the number of investors and how long it took to raise the round, yet noted that the round was made up of past investors in the company, including majority owners Peloton Equity and Hamilton Lane’s Impact Fund II.

“We raised from our current investors. These are people that believe in us, they’ve seen the trends, they’re seeing the evolution of this,” she said. 

Grenova started with seed money from former Richmond-based blood testing company Health Diagnostic Laboratory and launched its first product, the TipNovus, in 2015. The product allows labs to sanitize plastic pipette tips for reuse in transferring test samples, including for COVID-19 tests, which was a big boon for the company during the pandemic, Marrs said. Pipette tips are small, disposable plastic attachments that are used for taking in and dispensing liquids using pipettes. 

In the following years after Grenova’s founding, additional products like the TipLumis, a UV-purified chamber for pipette tips, and the PlateNovus, a microwell plate washer, were created. The products allow science labs to wash and reuse normally single-use pipette tips and microwell plates, which are flat devices used to hold samples. 

Marrs told BizSense that Grenova offers a range of pricing for its products to meet different needs, starting around $50,000 for smaller format models and approximately $250,000 for the company’s entry-level automation systems.

As for Grenova’s revenue model, in addition to developing, manufacturing and selling its devices, the company has a service department that provides tech support, maintenance, and training on the machines, and generates recurring revenue through the sale of GrenoClean, the company’s cleaning reagent.

With some customers, Marrs said Grenova is exploring a “fee-per-wash model,” allowing customers to pay based on usage instead of making a capital equipment purchase.

Grenova’s inaugural product, the TipNovus, sanitizes pipette tips for reuse.

With scientific labs becoming increasingly automated, Marrs said the new funding round will be used to further bring automation into Grenova products. 

In the past, Grenova was limited by how many pipette tips human hands could send through its system, Marrs said. The company is now looking at creating a system where a human could load up racks of hundreds of dirty pipette tips, walk away for four hours, and come back to find all of the tips cleaned by automation. 

“That’s really the story of our round, we need to create a work cell that is just happening in the background at these labs so there doesn’t have to be a lot of human interaction,” Marrs said. “Scientists can do science, while the tip washing is happening independently.” 

Grenova also plans to use funds to further its global expansion, particularly to increase its existing presence in Western Europe. 

“We’re doubling down in Europe, because they’re very advanced in sustainability there…our message really resonates in Western Europe,” Marrs said. “Some of this investment is going to build operations there.” 

The company recently created a German branch of Grenova and obtained a GmbH, Germany’s equivalent of a limited liability company. It has also established a showroom in the German city of Mannheim, where potential overseas customers will be able to come and see the products. 

“When you’re a sustainability company, flying over to Richmond to see the products, that kind of flies in the face of what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to provide an access point in Europe for customers to test this equipment,” Marrs said. 

The German showroom is set to officially open its doors May 6. 

Grenova was founded in Richmond by Ali Safavi in 2014, who remains as a board member with the company. Grenova moved its headquarters from Southside’s Clopton Siteworks to the former Sampson Coatings facility at 1900 Ellen Road in 2021. The headquarters spans 33,000 square feet and is about a block off Arthur Ashe Boulevard. 

Marrs joined Grenova in 2023 as CCO, before taking on the CEO role in November of last year. Marrs previously worked at Michigan-based medical equipment and device company Stryker Corp. for 13 years in numerous roles.

The company has under 50 employees, Marrs said.

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