The Chromocyte journey from startup to acquisition has been an incredible one, and Pivotal Scientific has been proud to support the company throughout its business lifecycle. Since its founding in 2010, we have assisted Chromocyte in all commercial aspects, helping it grow from a startup to a mature business. In November 2021, we represented Chromocyte in its successful acquisition by Biocompare, playing a key role in identifying the buyer, assisting in the negotiation of the sale price, and providing support at every stage of the transaction to ensure a smooth and successful sale.
Chromocyte is a free academic-driven portal dedicated to flow cytometry and other antibody-related techniques. It was launched in 2010 by Professor Graham Pockley, CEO of multimmune GmbH, a private, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. Before that, he was Director of the John van Geest Cancer Research Centre in Nottingham, UK. Graham’s aim for Chromocyte is to be the premier online resource for flow cytometry and other antibody-related techniques. With his experience and expertise within the field of flow cytometry, he was able to conceive and create Chromocyte. However, he did not have the commercial experience or manpower resources to raise awareness of his portal, gain end users, and encourage businesses operating within this field to sponsor it – as a free resource to end users it was vital that Chromocyte attracted sponsorship from industry as this would be the only source of income.
Graham had previously collaborated with Tim Bernard, CEO of Pivotal Scientific, when Tim was head of Sales and Marketing at Serotec (since acquired by Bio-Rad), so when he approached Tim for assistance with Chromocyte he knew that he could rely on Tim to provide the necessary resources to drive the company forward.
Pivotal Scientific became Chromocyte’s outsourced Sales and Marketing team. We helped develop a brand strategy that would define the rules on how to communicate the Chromocyte brand message to reinforce its position in the market and ensure that Chromocyte offered a better value proposition than competing platforms. This coupled with a Marketing plan was implemented by the Pivotal team throughout the entire Chromocyte journey.
Brand Awareness for the end user:
We helped raise brand awareness to attract more end users. To help do this we created marketing literature promoting the benefits of Chromocyte as a unique tool that could enable them to improve all aspects of their flow cytometry research.
We attended relevant conferences to introduce and educate attendees about Chromocyte and encourage them to sign up to the Chromocyte portal.
Account management
We looked after the sponsorship accounts, ensuring that their marketing needs were being fulfilled. Via regular communication with sponsors, we made sure our marketing activities were in line with their own strategies. We provided regular metric reports on how their content was performing.
Outreach to find new sponsors:
We had an ongoing outreach programme to identify and convert new sponsors.
Digital Marketing
We organised and sent a monthly flow cytometry-related newsletter to the Chromocyte CRM. This involved collecting and collating material from sponsors and advising them on the most suitable content that would achieve the best response.
M&A
Once Chromocyte reached maturity Graham appointed Pivotal Scientific to represent the company throughout the sale process. Pivotal Scientific successfully identified the buyer for Chromocyte, assisted in negotiating the sale price, and provided full support throughout the entire transaction process, ensuring a smooth and successful sale.
