Nebu~Flow
Sounds can make you laugh, they can make you cry, they can make you sing – and, thanks to Nebu-Flow, they could soon also help people with conditions such as asthma or cystic fibrosis.
Nebu-Flow, which was spun-out from the University of Glasgow in 2019, uses sound waves to turn liquids into tiny droplets that can be inhaled by patients.
By controlling the size of those droplets, the company’s technology could be used to deliver a range of medicines to treat a variety of respiratory disorders.
Allowing a patient to inhale a medicine that gets deep inside their lungs exactly where it’s needed would improve outcomes for patients and expand the number of treatments that can be used which currently don’t have effective mechanisms of delivery.
Elijah Nazarzadeh, Nebu-Flow’s chief executive, joined the University of Glasgow in 2015 and worked on the technology that underpins the company’s work.
In late 2017, he was awarded an iCURe grant from Innovate UK that allowed him, “to travel around the world and talk to as many people as possible to identify a market need for such a technology,” he explains.
With his market research under his belt, Elijah signed up for Converge to help turn the academic project into a business.
“Converge was the first time I received proper training about how businesses are run in the UK,” he explains.
“I had experience of running a business back home in Iran but Converge helped me to understand the fundraising landscape for a business in the UK”.
“As an academic, I was used to writing research papers and grant applications but Converge taught me how to write my first business plan.”
He adds: “Converge also provided me with feedback on my plans to identify the gaps, that helped for taking the business proposition to the next stage, forming Nebu-Flow.
“The contest was also great preparation for the competition you face when it comes to securing funding.”
Elijah reached the semi-finals of Converge in 2018 and then went a step further by making it into the 2019 finals.
Although he didn’t win a prize, the experience spurred him on to engage with other parts of the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Scotland and beyond.
They included winning one of the Scottish Government’s Unlocking Ambition Fellowships through the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Higgs Award from Scottish Edge, and the Lee Lucas Award from the Institute of Physics.
That success led on to a £250,000 grant from Innovate UK in 2020, a £80,000 SMART Scotland feasibility grant from Scottish Enterprise in 2021, and £1 million through Innovate UK’s biomedical catalyst in 2022.
As well as grant funding, Elijah has raised £7 million in equity investment since 2022, fuelling the company’s growth.
That equity funding has allowed Nebu-Flow to grow its workforce to 13 people at its premises in Glasgow, with plans to increase its headcount to 20 in the coming months.
“We now have our lab bench minimum viable product, suitable for validation by our customers,” Elijah adds.
“We are working on the details of our final product design and aim to have a regulatory submission by 2026.”