Olathe, Kansas biotech startup Ronawk just closed a $1.5M seed round and brings onboard Paul Morris of Solea Energy of Overland Park, Kan. as its fourth board member. The company has seven full time employees and spun out of the University of Kansas Medical Center in 2019.
“Yes, later this afternoon,” CEO AJ Mellot told bizblip when asked for an interview about the new round. “Sorry, it’s been a bit crazy.”
Ronawk is developing technology that can mass produce a patients own stem cells in the lab. Those cells, called ‘biologics’, can be used in the treatment of many diseases, cancer, organ injuries, and burns. The Olathe, KS startup sells its products to scientists developing vaccines, therapeutics, treatments, and diagnostics.
Early last year the startup reported doubling revenues in 2021 to more than $700,000 from $347,000 in 2020. The company closed two funding rounds in 2022: a ‘venture series – unknown’ round of $1.9M in Dec. and a seed round of $1.5M in July.
Prior to this announcement, CEO Mellott told bizbliop the company is mostly bootstrapped with “a little bit of funding… by a family office” (something CrunchBase calls ‘ Venture – Series Unknown’ from June, 2020) for an undisclosed amount. bizblip readers first heard of Ronawk when they were featured at the 2021 InvestMidwest Forum.
