Emerging Technology

SP Investment Fund LLC and its affiliates (SP) invest in emerging technology companies that solve large problems and are run by passionate entrepreneurs with transformative ideas. We prefer high impact innovations that will have a significant positive affect on society and improve and/or save lives. To date, SP has invested in a number of emerging technology companies in the fields of biotechnology, robotics, software, medical equipment, and financial technology. Because of the important problems they are addressing, some of the companies that SP has invested in have received grants from charitable organizations and/or governmental entities, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, the Department of Energy, and DARPA.

For more information about SP's emerging technology investing, contact Gil Seton Jr. at 310-576-7272 or by email at gil@sp-llc.net.

 

Unima

The Problem

Diagnosing diseases can be expensive and time consuming and, furthermore, can require access to equipment that is not available to many people in the developing world. The lack of resources and the delay in getting people tested is a very big factor in the high spread of tuberculosis and HIV and other diseases in the developing world. There is also no central database so that blood tests and disease patterns can be analyzed from geographic and other perspectives to aid in disease control and prevention.

The Solution

Unima is a biotechnology company dedicated to increasing access to diagnostics and preventing disease, particularly for the two billion underserved people in the developing world. Unima has developed fast and low cost diagnostic and surveillance technology for infectious diseases which allow doctors, nurses and community health workers to diagnose diseases directly at the point of care, in less than 15 minutes and without the use of lab equipment. The retail cost of a blood test is expected to be approximately $1 and accuracy is in line with traditional testing techniques. The process is extremely simple: the person pricks their finger, puts a drop of blood on a diagnostic paper device, and then takes a picture of the device with an app in a smart phone, which uses image processing, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Date stored is available to users for real time visualization and analytics to help decision makers to generate better strategies to stop disease outbreaks.

What Excites Us

Unima’s technology could provide access to low cost, fast and accurate diagnostics for 2 billion people in the developing world, saving and improving countless lives in the process. Also, because the results will automatically be geo-located and stored in the cloud, governments and disease control centers will be able to use this information in real time and after the fact to better control disease outbreaks and outcomes.

 

OpenTrons

The Problem

Biology experiments involve precision and repetition, but this process is not automated because the hardware and software for the automation of biology experiments has been impractical. Biologists currently spend too much time pipetting by hand and on manual labor. Automation of experiments would free biologists to spend their time in a more valuable manner on design and analytics. Automation would also allow for more complex protocols that are impractical using manual labor.

The Solution

OpenTrons makes robotics and software for the automation of biologists' laboratories and creates a common platform for scientists to easily share protocols and reproduce each other’s results. OpenTrons seeks to free biologists to spend more of their time designing experiments and analyzing data so that they can better pursue answers to some of the 21st Century’s most pressing questions.

What Excites Us

OpenTrons provides automation and software tools for biologists that will dramatically increase the speed of innovation and allow biologists to better address society's most pressing problems, saving and improving many lives in the process. In addition to allowing for more experiments, the automation of laboratory experiments allowed for by OpenTrons makes complex protocols and ideas possible that would otherwise not be feasible. Furthermore, the OpenTrons robots and software allow for add on products such as FusX, the world’s first all inclusive, in house, automated gene editor production system, which was developed by Mayo Clinic scientists as an add-on to their OpenTrons robot.

 

Zenflow

The Problem

Up to 400 million men worldwide currently suffer from urinary obstruction related to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), also known as enlarged prostate. The majority of men will experience symptoms of BPH during their lifetime. Despite the high prevalence and potentially significant quality of life burden of BPH, established treatments are limited to (a) drugs, which have limited effectiveness and carry side effects, and (b) surgery, which is expensive, requires general anesthesia and a hospital setting, has a painful recovery, and risks serious complications.

The Solution

The Zenflow Spring device uses a mechanism known to relieve BPH symptoms with a unique design that enables it to avoid complications. Urologists can deploy the device in a simple office based procedure that is faster and more painless than existing therapy.

What Excites Us

Up to 400 million men worldwide currently suffer from BPH and the majority of men will experience BPH symptoms during their lifetime. Current therapy is ineffective, costly, risky, and/or impractical for many of those men. Zenflow could improve the quality of life for many of those men.