ScaleBio and ParseBio!

Scale Bio has raised ~$30M, Parse Bio has raised ~$100M. They both seem to be doing pretty much the same thing.

ScaleParseBio sell instrument-free single cell prep kits. They use split-and-mix to add barcodes to cells. You stick cells down to a 96 well plate. Each well has barcode oligos which transverse the cell boundary.

You then remove the cells from the plate mix and split them in to another 96 well plate where they get a second set of barcodes.

Then remove the cells from the plate mix and split them in to another 96 well plate where they get a third set of barcodes.

Sounds like a pain.

It does however mean you don’t need to pay $35K for an instrument that probably costs $5K to make…

On the negatives: