MIRSENSE, a startup of IncubAlliance, the technological incubator of the Paris-Saclay Campus, specializing in the design of mid-infrared lasers used in particular for spectrometry, has announced the end of an initial funding campaign to raise two million euros.
Just two years after its creation, MirSense has just completed, at the end of 2017, an initial fund campaign to raise 2 million euros from XAnge and Supernova. This new step should allow the startup, which took its first steps within IncubAlliance, to accelerate its commercial development and progress in the miniaturization of its flagship product: gas sensors for measuring air quality or for the improvement of industrial processes. A look back at the long road already traveled by this young startup.
A spin-off from the III-V Lab industrial laboratory (Thalès, CEA-LETI, NOKIA), managed by two doctors of physics, Mathieu Carras and Mikael Brun, MirSense was created in January 2015 with the ambition to make the use of a semiconductor laser accessible to manufacturers. “Our major product currently consists of a multi-gas analysis module, the size of a pack of cigarettes, and which provides detection at very low levels at costs never achieved before“, states Mathieu Carras, Chief Executive Officer of MirSense. These sensors, which have been on the market since September 2017, are used in particular by industrialists to control gas emissions, detect hazardous substances or improve industrial processes.
After several months of discussions, MirSense has just announced it had completed a first campaign at the end of 2017 to raise two million euros with XAnge, a capital risk investors fund, and Supernova, a specialist in investments in disruptive technology startups. This support should open the way to further progress in the miniaturization of the MirSense gas detection solution and to the acceleration of the commercial development of the startup. “Support from investors who we now consider partners should allow us to structure our project more efficiently“, adds Mathieu Carras.
Although the MirSense solutions are currently primarily targeted at markets linked to environmental problems, the development prospects are wide open. “Thanks to the miniaturization of our solutions and keeping costs under control, we in fact consider reaching mass markets and, why not, one day fitting all vehicles with measurement sensors“, concludes Mathieu Carras.
