Australian National University helped supply series A funding to scientific testing device manufacturer Liquid Instruments, which is led by a professor from the university’s College of Science.
Liquid Instruments, an Australia-based scientific and industrial testing device maker headed by an Australian National University (ANU) professor, secured $8.2m yesterday in a series A round featuring ANU’s venture capital arm, Connect Ventures.
The round was led by venture capital and private equity firm Anzu Partners while ANU Connect Ventures was described as a follow-on investor.
Founded in 2014, Liquid Instruments has devised a hardware testing device for scientific researchers and engineers called Moku:Lab, which combines 12 precision testing and measurement instruments including a digital amplifier and a waveform generator into a single system.
Moku:Lab is powered by a field-programmable gate array chip that provides signal processing power, and is software-reconfigurable to facilitate customisation of some the underlying architecture to fit a client’s individual needs.
The series A cash will be used to accelerate product development as Liquid Instruments pursues business growth with research, industrial measurement and education clients in the US, Europe and Asia.
The company had previously pitched to multiple investors as part of an event run by accelerator and co-working space River City Labs in 2017.
Attendees included multi-university venture fund Uniseed and the Australian government-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation as well as NAB Ventures, Telstra Ventures and Cisco Ventures, respective subsidiaries of financial institution National Australia Bank, telecommunications firm Telstra and networking technology supplier Cisco.
The company is helmed by CEO Daniel Shaddock, a professor of physics at ANU’s College of Science. Shaddock said: “We started Liquid Instruments because we were frustrated with how little innovation there had been in test and measurement equipment.
“Labs today often look the same as they did 30 years ago because they are using the same oscilloscopes, spectrum analysers, waveform generators, and other conventional instruments – much like if businesses still used calculators and typewriters instead of computers.”
– Feature image courtesy of Liquid Instruments.
