First Financing by GOOSE into a University of Texas Technology
Houston, TX, October 2, 2022
The GOOSE Society of Texas and Lantha Inc., a solid-state chemical sensor start-up, today announced the closing of a $2.6 million Series A Preferred Stock financing. Proceeds will be used to finalize the development of Lantha’s commercial products, hire key personnel, and further buttress and expand Lantha’s intellectual property portfolio. The company expects to have its initial product on the market by the first quarter of next year.
Lantha has developed a unique, broadly applicable chemical sensor platform technology that it expects will disrupt many markets, including moisture analysis, trace chemical detection and analysis and fuel integrity testing. The technology is a novel form of solid-state chemical sensors invented by research chemists at the University of Texas. Dr. Simon Humphrey, Associate Professor of Chemistry at UT, is the principal inventor and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Lantha.
Lantha’s hand-held reader and single-use, disposable solid-state sensors are faster, cheaper and easier to use than traditional analytic tools such as NMR, FTIR and Karl Fischer Titration, and are just as accurate. Robert Toker, CEO and Chairman of Lantha, said, “We have world class scientists, who are the inventors of our technology, and a strong founding team, and we’ve attracted a great group of investors led by Jeff Smisek and the GOOSE Society in Houston as well as several prominent investors associated with the University of Texas at Austin. Jeff, Samantha Lewis, Executive Director of the GOOSE Society, and the entire GOOSE team are now our team; they have invested not only their capital but also considerable time, energy and wisdom that have improved our information and decision-making quality. Partnering with GOOSE has materially improved our chances of success.”
This is the GOOSE Society’s first investment into a UT technology. “We are excited about expanding GOOSE’s investment efforts to UT and look forward to future collaborations and deals,” said Lewis. Several high-profile investors from the UT community invested in Lantha’s Series A Preferred Stock alongside GOOSE investors.
Jeff Smisek, founder of investment firm Flight Partners Management LLC, led the deal and will take a seat on Lantha’s board of directors. He said, “Lantha is a great example of the GOOSE Society’s investment thesis — a company with proprietary and disruptive technology, low capital costs, large addressable markets, speedy product development and high margins which can benefit from the vast experience and contacts of the GOOSE Society’s investors. We are proud to lead this financing and look forward to working closely with Lantha’s management and world class scientists as they build a powerhouse in the field-based chemical analysis market.”
About GOOSE Society:
The GOOSE Society of Texas is a Houston based investment group comprised of high net worth, successful business executives and investors. GOOSE has invested over $50 million in early stage start-ups and has had numerous successful exits. The group invests around $10 million per year across a variety of industries, but with a focus on breakthrough, proprietary technologies.
About Lantha:
Lantha is commercializing a novel technology developed by research chemists at the University of Texas that allows rapid, low-cost, point-of-use trace chemical detection and measurement. The company’s proprietary metal organic framework (MOF) sensor technology, called PCM-22, consists of a MOF framework embedded with chromophores and lanthanide ions, all on a nano-scale, that emit unique color and intensity signals in the presence of analytes upon exposure to ultraviolet light, permitting highly accurate chemical measurement. Lantha has significant addressable markets across a large range of industries, ranging from pharmaceuticals to oil and gas to water to defense.
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