I did not expect Lab Donkey to be here this quickly.
When we started, there was no big VC machine behind us, no shiny funding announcement, no huge team, and no polished story designed to make us look bigger than we were.
We had belief, a product to build, and a problem in labs that we cared deeply about.
Since then, the journey has moved faster than I think any of us expected.
Where We Are Today
Today, we are working with three of the biggest pharma companies in the world. We have joined the AstraZeneca BioVentureHub and have our own wet lab within AstraZeneca. We have also had incredible support from instrument manufacturers, to the point where when we need an instrument to develop against, the conversation is often not "convince us", but "tell us when and where, and we will send it."
That still means a lot.
Not because it makes us look successful from the outside, but because it tells us something important: people believe in what we are building.
And they believe in it without the noise.
No big funding announcement. No inflated story. No pretending to be further ahead than we are.
Just a team that is obsessed with solving the real problems inside labs.
A Date and a Promise
A while ago, I sat down with Safwan HAK and asked him one question. Not whether Lab Donkey would be successful. Not whether we could compete. I asked him how long it would take before Lab Donkey became the undisputed number one solution for lab automation.
He gave me a date.
And a promise.
We are nearly halfway to that date, and I believe we will get there.
The product is good. There will always be bugs to fix, features to build, integrations to improve, and things we need to make better. That is the nature of software, especially software that lives in the real world of laboratories.
But the foundation of LAB DONKEY is something we are incredibly proud of.
Time to Scale
We have proven to ourselves, our partners, and our clients that this is not a fly-by-night venture. Lab Donkey is here to stay.
Now it is time to scale.
That means bigger integration teams. More integrations. More partnerships. Stronger deployments. Better support. A platform that can serve more labs without every project becoming a bespoke engineering effort.
And that is why we are beginning conversations with the right long-term partners.
We are not knocking on every VC door looking for capital. We are looking for people who understand what we are building, why it matters, and how much bigger this can become.
We are not just building another lab automation tool.
We are building Lab Automation+.
A broader vision for how manual, semi-automated, and fully automated labs can work better. A way to simplify lab operations, connect systems, support scientists, improve workflows, and make automation more accessible to the teams who need it.
Someone asked me two years ago whether I thought Lab Donkey could become a billion-dollar company.
At the time, I said no.
Not because I lacked ambition, but because I did not yet understand the size of the opportunity. I had not seen enough. I had not spent enough time with the labs, the scientists, the automation teams, the vendors, and the clients who have since become such an important part of how we think and build.
Now I see it differently.
The more time we spend in labs, the clearer it becomes that we have only scratched the surface of what Lab Donkey can become.
Not a Funding Announcement
So no, this is not a funding announcement.
We have not closed a round. We are still early in the process. We are still working on the deck, writing down the vision, and shaping the next chapter.
But we wanted to share where we are.
Because so many of you have been part of this journey already.
The support, the encouragement, the introductions, the honest feedback, and the belief in what we are building have not gone unnoticed.
Lab Donkey started as an idea.
Now it is becoming something much bigger.
And the next chapter is about finding the right people to help us scale it properly.