Morressier, a Berlin, Germany-based company that enables the acceleration of scientific breakthroughs by making the newest research findings more accessible and discoverable, announced it has raised €4 million in funding from Cherry Ventures. Existing investor Redalpine also participated in this round.
How does Morressier work? Scientists begin their research with an idea and they spend months or years gathering data, discussing observations, and presenting preliminary findings at conferences. This process happens offline and hidden within the walls of universities without knowing what is happening in science right now. And researchers may not be aware that they are working on the same topics as others or that they are using outdated findings as the foundation of their research.
Morressier connects a number of players from the industry, universities, scientific institutions, and conferences together to facilitate the exchange of early-stage research and fosters a global dialogue around pre-published data.
Through Morressier, researchers have opened shared over 140,000 previously hidden research findings such as presentations, videos, images, and other metadata.
“For too long research has taken place behind closed doors, with only a tiny fraction of the data that is generated along the way being made accessible to the rest of the world,” said Morressier co-founder and CEO Sami Benchekroun in a statement via EU-Startups. “At Morressier we aim to open up and track science from idea to paper, connecting every step of the research process along the way. We’re very excited to have such bold, energetic and experienced investors on board to work with us towards this goal.”
Founded in 2014, Morressier is considered the first company to provide analytics on trending scientific topics as they happen on the basis of research. And Morressier will rapidly grow its early-stage research platform and drive the adoption of its end-to-end analytics to the scientific ecosystem with this funding round.
“Enabling the sharing of previously hidden early scientific findings allows us to quickly move towards making the entire research lifecycle digital, open, connected, and data-driven,” added Morressier co-founder and CTO Rino Montiel. “Our research analytics and search technology will allow all parts of the research ecosystem to monitor science as it happens and easily discover the findings that are most relevant to them.”
Photo: Sami Benchekroun & Justus Weweler / Credit: Morressier
Morressier is also going to hire more engineering talent and further invest in machine learning going forward. Plus Morressier is going to continue to build out its research analytics product in partnership with pharmaceutical companies and boost the visibility of early-stage research in collaboration with universities and scientific institutions.
“There’s a dramatic change happening in science and we believe Morressier is the right company to spearhead this movement,” Cherry Ventures founding partner Filip Dames explained. “By gaining access to unique pre-published research from top universities and scientific institutions Morressier can determine trends and signals in science at a far earlier stage than ever before, giving the company a defensible edge in the multi-billion dollar R&D industry.”
