Applied LifeSciences & Systems (ALSS) recently announced the close of an $8 million Series A round of equity financing, which was co-led by Merck Animal Health and Mountain Group Partners (MGP). Oval Park Capital, a Raleigh, N.C.-based early-stage investment firm, also participated in the round.

According to the announcement, ALSS integrates proprietary technologies in high-speed imaging, feature recognition, artificial intelligence, robotics and microfluidics in a system that can individually vaccinate up to 100,000 chicks per hour against diseases such as coccidiosis, infectious bronchitis and Newcastle disease.

The investment will allow ALSS to accelerate the development of its automated and individualized poultry vaccination system, the company said.

"At ALSS, we are focused on development of new and unique technologies to rapidly and individually vaccinate animals, ensuring the best protection against some of the most harmful diseases impacting the protein production industry today. We expect our systems to have a major impact on improving the industry's productivity, profitability and sustainability," ALSS founder and chief executive officer Ramin Karimpour said. "We are highly excited that Merck Animal Health, a leader in the animal health market, and MGP, one of the top investors in life sciences and ag-tech, have expressed their confidence in our team and mission by their investment in ALSS."

Merck Animal Health Ventures head Stephen Murray noted that "Merck Animal Health seeks to identify and invest in companies with early-stage technologies, devices and solutions with the potential to augment and complement our own portfolio of vaccines and pharmaceutical products to improve animal health, welfare and performance. Leveraging Merck Animal Health's knowledge of poultry vaccination processes, our investment with ALSS will enable the development of its innovative technology that has the potential to significantly increase vaccination rates and enhance poultry production for our customers."

Based in Raleigh, ALSS is a biomedical systems company poised to transform animal protein production industries worldwide by bringing affordable, individualized care technologies to the market.

Source: Applied LifeSciences & Systems, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.