Global marketplace for R&D chemical compounds MolPort is solving the information exchange problem for scientists and compound producers. Their website unites catalogues of countless compound suppliers around the world and integrates them into a simple, cost-effective and visual one-stop-shop for ordering rare chemical compounds.
CEO of MolPort Imants Zudans reveals their next steps: “The attracted funding will go to strengthening our marketing and sales team, as well as technically improving the platform to ensure smooth client experience and scalability for continued high growth.”
The statements about high growth and global operations are well-grounded. Molport has 9 out of 10 world’s leading chemical universities as their clients, along with research institutes, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies from 65 countries. At the moment MolPort database contains more than 25 million chemical compounds.
Forrester Research estimates that B2B ecommerce market in the US that has already reached 780 billion turnover to grow another 7.7% each year for the next five years. Pharmaceuticals and petrol are two biggest industries in B2B ecommerce.
One of MolPort investors, Janis Skutelis from FlyCap comments: “We invested in MolPort growth because it already is a global player, reaching clients all over the world. The team is very effective and energetic, they continuously work on improving their products and their solution is globally competitive in a market that has not yet been disrupted as much as IT.”
The distinct value proposition of MolPort is clear – a scientist can draw the chemical formula of required compound in their drag and drop user interface, and MolPort gets the molecule delivered. The clear value of solving this specific need was clearly demonstrated when MolPort was just starting – they were bidding on general search terms for pharmaceutical compound marketplaces without much traffic tickling back to the site. Then one teammate thought – what if we bid on specific, long-tail compound names? It is cheaper, and our customers are more likely to be searching them. As soon as they did this, visits to MolPort site skyrocketed. You can play with their compound composed here.
Meanwhile, MolPort is already hiring for two vacancies in its growing team – you can now become a marketing manager or client account manager for the company. With Latvian tradition of medical research and two life science accelerators based there, it suits Riga well to be the headquarters of a global molecule marketplace. We are looking forward to new developments.
