Governor Cuomo recently declared a State of Emergency for New York amid the coronavirus outbreak, and people are in panic-buying mode, stocking up on toiletries, food, and disinfectants. One of the newest disinfectants that has yet to hit consumer shelves is Highlight by Kinnos. Highlight is the patented color additive platform that corrects human error in disinfecting by using color to make it easy to see what parts were missed. The color fades in a few minutes, also indicating that the disinfection is done, and the surface is safe to touch. Kinnos soft-launched, in hospitals, at the end of 2019, and it plans to roll out a larger launch in the next six months. But in the time being, Kinnos is also looking for ways to help out throughout this coronavirus outbreak as ineffective disinfection remains a large problem in transmission.
AlleyWatch sat down with CEO and Co-founder Jason Kang to learn more about Kinnos and its recent funding round. Kinnos has raised total funding of $7.8M across three rounds.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Kinnos raised a $6M funding round led by Prolog Ventures, with participation from Allston Venture Fund, Partnership Fund for New York City, Golden Seeds, MEDA Angels, and several strategic individual investors who are veterans of the healthcare and business worlds. Super excited to have put together such an experienced and committed syndicate of investors.
Tell us about the product or service that Kinnos offers.
Less than half of critical surfaces in healthcare settings are properly cleaned, contributing to unnecessarily high rates of infection. While studies have shown that improved cleaning proficiency can reduce infections by up to 80%, existing approaches to reduce human error in cleaning do not improve technique effectively. We solve this problem with Highlight, our patented color additive platform that is combined with existing disinfectants that are already widely used. Highlight-enhanced disinfectants are colorized so you can easily see where you have and have not covered, and then the color fades from colored to colorless after a few minutes to approximate when disinfection is done and the surface is safe to touch. Highlight overcomes language, education, and training barriers and immediately enables a completely untrained person to correctly disinfect surfaces every single time a disinfectant is used. Our goal is to provide the public with peace of mind through disinfection you can see.
What inspired the start of Kinnos?
My cofounders, Katherine Jin and Kevin Tyan, and I started the company back in 2014 when we were still undergrads at Columbia University. Columbia held a design challenge in response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and they had an interesting model where experts from the field spoke about the challenges they were facing. One of the most pressing issues mentioned were that human error and ineffective disinfection were leading to high rates of infection transmission, and if only there was some way to see what they were doing. That’s when we had the impetus for creating colorized disinfection.
How is Kinnos different?
We’re the only company that’s empowering people to change their behavior in real-time, every single time disinfection occurs. We’ve created an intuitive technology that can be easily integrated into existing protocols to have an immediate impact. Importantly, the visible nature of our product can instill a sense of confidence and safety in people, which is meaningful especially given the fear that has been caused by the current coronavirus outbreak.
What market does Kinnos target and how big is it?
Kinnos is creating a new market for colorized disinfection within the $20B infection prevention industry.
Who do you consider to be your main competitors?
We don’t have any direct competitors for colorized disinfection and view ourselves as complementary with other companies in the infection prevention space. It’s important to note that other innovations in our space like UV lights and misters/foggers don’t replace the need for chemical disinfection on surfaces and that the mechanical action of using friction to wipe surfaces (e.g. to remove biofilm, blood, dirt, etc.) will always be an important part of protecting people from infections. This makes Kinnos unique as the only company focusing on real-time behavior change for daily cleaning with existing disinfectants.
What’s your business model?
We sell directly to our hospital, humanitarian agency, industrial, and first responder customers. We’re looking to expand our product offerings to the consumer market soon.
What was the funding process like?
We were lucky to have such a great network of advisors and mentors who were willing to make introductions. Of course, getting introductions vs. turning those introductions into commitments are two very different things.
I think one of the strengths of our technology is that it’s intuitive once you see it and people can understand the value proposition almost immediately.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
There’s a lot of funding available for healthcare innovations around diagnostics, treatments (pharma, med-devices), and software/IT, and much fewer funding opportunities around prevention.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check? Healthcare-associated infections cost the US healthcare system $45B each year and affect 1 out of every 31 people that go to a hospital. Even before mass media started covering COVID-19, infection prevention was one of the key focus areas in healthcare and growing in importance with the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Beyond hospitals, investors also see the potential for Highlight and our colorized disinfection platform to be used in a number of other verticals including hospitality, transportation, food services and manufacturing, consumer, and so on.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We did a soft launch of our Highlight Wipes product in hospitals at the end of 2019, and we’re focused on a larger launch in the next 6 months. We’re also now looking for ways to expand our impact both domestically and internationally to aid in the COVID-19 response.
We did a soft launch of our Highlight Wipes product in hospitals at the end of 2019, and we’re focused on a larger launch in the next 6 months. We’re also now looking for ways to expand our impact both domestically and internationally to aid in the COVID-19 response.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Start building relationships with potential investors when you don’t need the capital – it’s much easier to ask for some time to give a pitch or ask for intros when they’ve already known you for a while.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We’re always working towards our mission of setting the standard for infection prevention. In the near term, we’re currently hiring and will be doing some more media pushes to generate greater awareness that technology like Highlight exists.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Nonono for awesome Japanese food!
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