Netherlands-based Loop Robots, a company that automates disinfection using smart robots to make medical-grade sanitisation, announced that it has raised $2M (approx €1.69M) in its Seed round of funding.
According to WHO, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most critical health challenges facing humanity in the coming years. Preventing infections, especially of vulnerable patients in hospitals and care homes, is an essential tool in the fight against AMR. This is where Loop Robots seeks to make a difference.
The proceeds from this round will help the company to accelerate the deployment of its automated room and surface disinfection co-bots for hospitals.
Investors in this round
A group of private entrepreneurial investors led by Nanotech Ventures and Locapes Investment Fund participated in this round.
Speaking on the development, Job Elders of Nanotech Ventures, says, “We are impressed by Loop Robots’ solution and their responsiveness to input from infection prevention experts, cleaning staff, and facility managers to create a co-bot service that helps hospitals save money while improving quality.”
“Our private investment group of experienced serial entrepreneurs and a long-standing family firm active for generations in hospital infrastructure is the perfect match for the company in this phase, providing strong financial support, expertise, and network,” adds Elders.
Autonomously deactivate viruses and bacteria
Hospital-acquired infections lead to 72,000 deaths each year just in the US, and this was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Manual terminal cleaning of rooms using wipes and chemicals is hard, time-consuming, and not easily repeatable. With an efficacy rate of just between 25-50 per cent, it results in almost 7 per cent of patients in European hospitals acquiring an infection by a resistant pathogen.
Loop Robots automates disinfection using its smart robot SAM to make medical-grade sanitisation faster, safer, and digitally auditable. It claims to help fight hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) while reducing the use of chemicals. SAM utilises ‘powerful germicidal UVC light’ to deactivate up to 99.9999 per cent (log 6 reduction) of bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens.
Founder Per Slycke explains, “We provide a super-human tool, our co-bot SAM, to the cleaning staff in hospitals, and it helps them create a safer hospital environment without needing to work with chemical wipes and biocides. After having worked very closely with several leading hospitals in the Benelux, making sure the cleaning staff loves working with SAM, we are ready to scale up implementations of our validated and certified automated disinfection co-bot. SAM is easy to integrate with the operational workflow of cleaning staff in the hospital which is key to large-scale use.”
About Loop Robots
The company was founded in 2020 by serial entrepreneur Per Slycke, Maarten Sluyter, Mark van de Vrede, and Aswin Chandarr, along with several key talents from earlier high-tech mobile robot spinouts from the Technical University of Delft.
Loop Robots’s clients and partners include Spaarne Gasthuis hospital, Rijnstate hospital, Pieter van Foreest care homes, the Public Health Laboratory Kennermerland, UZ Gent hospital, University Medical Center Groningen, G4S, Deutsche Post DHL, and several other top technical universities.
The company was recently listed as one of the most promising AI startups/scaleups in the Netherlands and has been selected for the NVIDIA Inception program.