Keith Cline, VentureFizz
CEO Mac, thanks so much for joining us.
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Absolutely. It's a pleasure.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
I'm excited to talk to you because we're gonna talk about Labviva, which is revolutionizing life sciences, and procurement, which is just a great fundamental business. And I'm excited to unpack that. So what is what does the company do?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Yes, Labviva, at its core is a technology. It's a SaaS platform that sits at the center of purchasing and procurement in large life science b2b organizations. We are we provide a platform where scientists and technical users within those organizations they can rapidly search, identify the right products across many different suppliers, and then be able to procure and purchase those products based on parameters that really fits their desired by them. But there is based on price based on availability based on whether suppliers local or green or diverse supplier, be able to make those purchases. And then we support the whole order process, make sure that transactions are done seamlessly with the least amount of impact and effort by the buyer from the order management perspective. And then provide the buyers as well as suppliers with Core Data and analytics and can help them improve their activities. Really, at the heart of it, we provide control and transparency for for for the marketplace that really, you know, transact hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So you're a CEO and co-founder of the company. So how did the idea come to fruition?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Yeah, so the idea was really born out of necessity, you know, both myself and Nick, we were my co-founder, we have been in this market for decades, we have worked at some of the largest distributors and manufacturers in this in this industry. And before that, there was a need to really modernize, modernize the purchasing processes within Life Science sector, while you see other sectors, they have really come of age and platforms like Amazon really bring a lot of value to the b2c market and consumers. Still large b2b purchasing and procurement is still done the way it was, perhaps, like 3040 50 years ago. So we felt that technology could be a great vehicle to disrupt that and bring more value in a way that will leveling the playing field between sellers and buyers, providing more option, providing more control and transparency. And allowing, allowing buyers to, you know, have a much better experience and much more efficient purchasing process.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So this is obviously a very large platform, you're solving a very complex problem. So who are the typical customers that you're dealing with?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Yeah, typically, these customers, they have, you know, hundreds and millions in transactions that are going through different channels within their organization, they don't have a good handle on all the transactions, either from driving those transactions to the right channels, to the right suppliers to the right, providers, as well as not having full visibility into the data and analytics. And typically, they those organizations are driven internally to come up with opportunities for cost savings, more efficiencies. So there is this organic driver within those organizations that they want to get more out of their spent be lot more efficient, have more transparency into their data, have more control of their suppliers. And along those lines be able to bring more efficiency from the cost savings or people's process efficiency into their organization. So yeah, so typically, those are the drivers, we often engage with the procurement leaders within those organizations, sometimes head of r&d, sometimes the finance team. So there are different ways that we are identified as a platform that brings value to the organization. But regardless, those are the three core constituents and functions that typically lab people appeals to, and they become an advocate for us, but then the organization.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now in terms of the plans ahead for hiring are you hiring across all different functional areas?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Yes, absolutely. So we went from five, a team of five, to a team of 12 as part of our pre seed round, and then as seed round, we went, you know, a team of like 20. And now we are at 50. So we are growing rapidly, a lot of that growth is happening, obviously, within our engineering team. Because that's, you know, we, you know, we have a pretty robust and exciting product roadmap that goes beyond the core marketplace platform and allows us to become real a central hub of purchasing and procurement within large b2b organizations. But that said, we're also investing in our product team. We are investing in our marketing team, our operations team International, we are expanding internationally to significant growth in Europe, South America and Asia. So yeah, so we really hiring across the board. But obviously, engineering is a pretty strong area of focus for us right now.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
And once someone joins the team, but what's the culture like, what's it like to work there?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Well, it's a pretty friendly and pretty, you know, team members centric organization, you know, one of the best advice that I ever got from one of my mentors was to care about people's development and growth and not look at them as tools. So I've been in organizations where I was treated like a tool and organizations that they really understood what I could bring to the table, and they also considered my growth and my, you know, objectives in, in, in, in occupation, but we are very, very much focused and centered on our team members, we want to challenge them with the right, you know, goals and the right projects. At the same time, we have a strong proponent on having work life balance, making sure that they, you know, they are growing, and they're achieving, whether it's academically or whether it's, you know, other goals and objectives that they have, personally, but also growing within, within our organization. And, and, you know, until we really, they can set the bar as high as they want, whether it's here or elsewhere, I want it to be an opportunity for them to, for them to feel that they're really learning and growing and contributing and have a have fun along the way. So it's a very laid back environment. Even though I'm dressed in suit today, that's not a dress, usually, you have a very significant form of customers coming in for a site visit. But other than that, you know, it's a very laid back environment, very friendly environment. And I'm very accessible the entire team executive teams very, very accessible. And we have, I think, I think we have a lot of fun.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now top tier talent always has options, regardless of market conditions. So why should Labviva be on the radar for potential employees?
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Yeah, you know, I think I learned this many, many years ago, when I was at a startup in Silicon Valley. We were working, I was working for a startup that we were annotating human genome. We were like, really the first company that as the genomic sequences were becoming available, they were annotating them, translating them into proteins and functions that those proteins could have. That could help drug discovery and improve human health conditions. I remember working with some of the top notch engineers in Silicon Valley that thet had option to work for any number of companies, those days, and my question to them was, Why? Why are you here? And one thing that surprised me was like they saw their work in the context of the end result the product and how it was helping human condition and how it was helping healthcare and medicine. And I think this is something that I particularly feel like differentiates us that we are actually involved in drug discovery. We are actually involved with improving human conditions. We are actually involved in advancing medicine. As you know, the time that we give back to scientists and one of our customers have done a study that they basically identified at lab people can provide provide them with one extra day per week of scientists time at the bench, which is significantly significant. So I feel like we are giving back to the research community, whether there are in academic research or in pharma research and development. And I think we are actually in some ways we are helping advance science, advancing medicine and helping human condition.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Well, if you are interested in exploring opportunities, and Labviva, you need to go to their company page on VentureFizz, which has all their job listings there, go to venturefizz.com/labviva, and you'll see all the jobs posted. Siamak, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through all the great things happen at the company.
Siamak Baharloo, Labviva
Thank you very much. It was very nice to speaking with you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
