New Orleans-based biotech startup acquired by Japanese company

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About ten years ago, Alex Reed was working in the Tulane University Center for Polymer Reaction Monitoring and Characterization lab led by Alex’s father, Dr. Wayne Reed. Alex Reed developed a real-time production analysis technology that evolved into Fluence Analytics, and after sustained help from the New Orleans BioInnovation Center, Fluence Analytics has been acquired by Yokogawa Electric Corporation of Musashino, Tokyo, Japan.

While the terms of the acquisition are private, NOBIC Executive Director and BioFund Managing Director Kris Khalil says Fluence Analytics was purchased for a significant sum. Beyond that, the entire process of building the company from the ground up in New Orleans with significant investment from NOBIC could be a bellwether for the region’s biotechnology sector.

“We provided hours of support to Alex and his team in the early days, and when they started their quest for startup capital, the BioFund was there to plug them with a significant amount in the early days,” Khalil said. “From that point in time, the company grew and took on other private investors, not just around town, but around the country.”

Even though Fluence Analytics is now going to be international, Alex Reed said the company will always be a Tulane project, through and through.

“If I had to say it succinctly, we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Tulane,” Alex Reed said. “The technology came out of the university, and it’s the research efforts that are supported by the university and the investments they make in the technology transfer office to promote intellectual property that enabled this to happen. We have a unique, patented technology that has potential for global impact, so those initial investments and how they worked with us as a startup, we were a baby company with no resources at the time, so they didn’t treat us like a big corporation trying to license IP. They were flexible and saw the long-term vision of what it would mean for the university and New Orleans to have a successful spinout commercializing patents.”

As Fluence Analytics grew their team, NOBIC remained involved as partners, mentors, advisors, and funders, Khalil said. Over time, Fluence Analytics developed a very strong relationship with Yokogawa, which merged Fluence Analytics into the larger company on February 2.

“This came with a liquidity event for the company and for the investors,” Khalil said. “We’re really excited about this, for all the obvious reasons, and we have some newly minted New Orleans millionaires, which is real exciting. The returns for this investment are going to go back into the BioFund and we’re going to be able to do at least 10 or 20 capitol placements in early-stage life science technologies here in our backyard.”

Khalil said the full amount the BioFund has invested in Fluence Analytics is not public, but he did say the BioFund typically “writes checks in the quarter million-dollar range, on average.” With the return from the Fluence Analytics deal, Khalil said the 10 to 20 new startups he hopes to find and fund will greatly benefit for years to come.

“We’re really excited about the future of the innovation community in New Orleans and we’re very proud to be a part of this Fluence Analytics journey over the last decade,” Khalil said.

Fluence Analytics CEO Jay Manouchehri, who, like Alex Reed, is a proud native of New Orleans and graduate of Tulane, said the best part of the entire venture is the university’s commitment to paying this success forward. For their part, Manouchehri said the Fluence team will continue to offer their services as mentors.

“We would love to do that with as many NOLA-based startups as possible,” Manouchehri said. “If people want to reach out to us, we would love to help.”

Kahlil said his company allows large scale production facilities to monitor the production process in real time, so they can optimize production and eliminate waste. He said large oil and gas and chemical plants will be able to add the Fluence Analytics technology to their existing legacy systems to streamline production and eliminate waste on a huge scale, potentially saving millions in production costs.