Working in the fertility laboratory space for the better part of a decade, Will Baird was responsible for maintaining the integrity of cryogenic storage tanks. He manually checked them on a daily basis and was on call for potential alarms, all in service of the valuable cargo—eggs, sperm, and embryos—contained in the tanks.
But for all Will’s hard work, he was troubled by inherent inefficiencies.
“I got pretty frustrated with the lack of usable data that we were able to gather from the current sensing technology, these temperature probes we were using… we just knew there had to be a better way.”
That sense ultimately led to the birth of Boreas Monitoring, a Wilmington-based startup Will co-founded alongside Dr. Bill Baird (Will’s father) and Dr. Chad Johnson.
Will describes liquid nitrogen tanks used to store fertility materials as, essentially, robust thermoses—like a Yeti (the brand, not the mythical woodland beast) on steroids. Over time, these tanks can fail, leading to rapidly evaporating liquid nitrogen and damaging the tanks’ contents.
While there is some static evaporation rate in general, a failing tank will lose 10-20 times as much liquid nitrogen and can run dry over a weekend. Will likened the lack of real-time visibility concerning this sort of potential failure to driving a car without a fuel gauge.
“You don’t know you’re out of gas until that light flickers on, right, and you just passed the last gas station for a hundred miles….”
Labs and clinics, to be fair, are not operating entirely without a gauge. However, the standard method many of them employ to monitor tanks is entirely manual and, one might argue, outdated.
“We’d literally take plastic yard sticks and put them inside of these tanks, wait ‘til a frost line formed, and then record the level of liquid nitrogen that was in the tank,” Will said, recalling his time in fertility labs.
The Boreas solution
Will and his co-founders recognized that by looking at weight, they could monitor the level of liquid nitrogen more accurately and continuously. They developed an algorithm that can determine what a failing tank would look like—and detect failure “days if not weeks earlier” than one can with a temperature probe.
Building on this concept (and algorithm), Boreas Monitoring now produces a weight-based monitoring system that captures data every 15 minutes and conveys it via the cloud to a client’s digital portal. The system provides users with comprehensive data and sends real-time alerts as needed.
Fortunately, tank failure is rare, in part because clinics are hyper-sensitive to the dire repercussions of compromised material. But that same sensitivity fosters an appetite for greater risk mitigation. Additionally, in 2019, the College of American Pathologists determined that maintaining a daily records of level inspection and/or continuous weight was to be the new standard.
Boreas Monitoring’s tools can work to this standard, mitigate risk to a greater degree, and save time—such that a clinic’s highly educated and well-trained staff doesn’t have to monitor tanks with measuring rulers on a daily or bi-weekly basis.
This proposition has led the startup to secure some 20 paying customers (plus 7-10 pilot customers) to date, spread out across the United States. Boreas sells a “system as a service,” leasing its equipment to clinics and providing access to the accompanying software for a monthly or annual fee.
Traction and what’s next
On top of its early business, Boreas Monitoring has also enjoyed success with various growth opportunities throughout North Carolina.
The startup participated in the RIoT Accelerator program; earned a $50K NC IDEA SEED grant; secured a WALE investment; and won the Big Launch Challenge (for $10K). Boreas Monitoring also closed a pre-seed fundraising round earlier this year and is eyeing a potential follow-up round in the next 6-12 months.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Boreas Monitoring
Co-Founders: Will Baird (CEO), Dr. Bill Baird, Dr. Chad Johnson
Founded: 2019
Team size: 10
Location: Wilmington, NC
Website: boreasmonitoring.com
Funding: Grants; closed pre-seed round
The startup’s next major milestone is to service larger tanks (which in turn might support material for up to 500-1000 patients). Will indicated that they will also explore the idea of providing quality control for the transportation of cryogenic material via shipping processes around the world.
While the primary focus remains on mitigating risk for fertility clinics and materials, there are also other industries and processes that stand to benefit from Boreas Monitoring’s technology—including animal sciences, conservation efforts, and even stem cell research.
Boreas—with a name appropriately inspired by the Greek god of the (chilly-sounding) north winds—has the potential to assist whenever something needs to be stored in a consistent cryogenic state.
