Giving Chicks the Needle: ALSS injects $7 Million Round for Poultry Tech

Applied LifeSciences & Systems (ALSS) has raised a $7 million Series B equity financing for its high-tech chick vaccination technology.

Merck Animal Health and Mountain Group Partners led the round with Oval Park Capital, a Raleigh-based early-stage investment firm also participating.

ALSS integrates proprietary technologies in high-speed imaging, feature recognition, artificial intelligence, robotics and microfluidics in a system currently developed for the commercial poultry industry. This system can individually and accurately vaccinate up to 100,000 chicks per hour against diseases such as coccidiosis, infectious bronchitis and Newcastle disease.

The Series B investment will accelerate the commercialization of its automated and individualized poultry vaccination systems, the company said.

Ramin Karimpour, ALSS founder and CEO, said in the funding announcement, "At ALSS, we have developed a series of patented platform technologies to rapidly and accurately vaccinate individual animals. This will ensure the best protection against some of the most harmful diseases and significantly increase proactive vaccination to further prevent the spread of disease and reduce the use of antibiotics and chemicals in the protein production industries today.”

He added, “Our initial product line has successfully demonstrated targeting and vaccine delivery at the high speeds and accuracy needed to integrate and support improved bird performance within current commercial poultry operations. We look forward to the successful commercialization and launch of our systems in 2022.”

Stephen Murray, executive director of Merck Animal Health Ventures, added, "We are delighted with the progress by the ALSS team. Leveraging our knowledge of poultry vaccination alongside ALSS is enabling their breakthrough technology to significantly increase vaccination rates and enhance poultry production, management and health outcomes."

Rob Readnour, managing director at Mountain Group Partners said, “ALSS's technology will significantly improve vaccination efficiency and provide a great tool to producers.”