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Marama Labs

Marama Labs makes UV-Vis spectroscopy instruments that measure the true optical properties of cloudy and turbid liquids without the usual step of clarifying the sample first.

Category
Bio and Healthcare
Fund
NZVC I
Website
www.maramalabs.com
CloudSpec is a benchtop instrument with a sample chamber that opens on the top.
CloudSpec is a benchtop instrument with a sample chamber that opens on the top.

What Marama Labs does

Marama Labs's CloudSpec device places the sample in a highly reflective spherical chamber to separate absorption from scattering, turning measurements that once took hours into results in seconds. The company began in Wellington and in winemaking, where customers include Giesen and Cloudy Bay, and it now runs its lab at DCU Alpha in Dublin, where the same measurement quantifies payloads and ligands in the lipid nanoparticles that carry RNA medicines.

The secret

Cloudiness is not noise to be filtered, it is scattering that can be separated from absorption. Putting the sample inside a highly reflective spherical chamber does that separation physically, which is why two hours of sample preparation collapses into about 15 seconds.

Why NZVC invested in Marama Labs

We backed Marama Labs because sample preparation is a hidden bottleneck across every industry that relies on spectroscopy, and removing it saves real time and cost. The technology came out of serious university physics, and the team has turned it into an instrument that paying customers use in production. Wine gave them a demanding first market to prove the product, and the same core measurement opens much larger opportunities in pharmaceuticals and food.

Watch: CloudSpec by MaramaLabs: A Turbid Liquid Spectrophotometer

Marama Labs in the press

MACSO · All companies · Markato