Science Exchange

Overview

Science Exchange set out to make outsourcing a scientific experiment as easy as buying anything online, and over thirteen years it learned that R&D procurement in big pharma is not a spot market — it's a high-trust, high-compliance enterprise workflow. Founded in 2011 by cancer biologist Elizabeth Iorns with Ryan Abbott and Dan Knox, it began as an online marketplace connecting scientists to contract research organizations and specialized labs that could run experiments for them.^[1]

It raised $77.6 million from investors including Norwest and Y Combinator, and gradually evolved from an open marketplace into enterprise "supplier orchestration" software for life-sciences R&D.^[3] In September 2024, the private-equity firm Waud Capital Partners acquired Science Exchange, and the founders stepped aside the following year.^[2] The story is a study in how the "marketplace for X" thesis concedes, in regulated high-trust B2B, to enterprise-workflow reality — and how that slower, stickier business grinds toward a solid PE outcome rather than a fast breakout.

Founding Story

Elizabeth Iorns was a working scientist — a breast-cancer researcher — when she co-founded Science Exchange in 2011 with Dan Knox and Ryan Abbott, and her motivation came straight from the lab.^[5] Getting an experiment done that your own lab couldn't run meant a slow, opaque hunt for the right facility, informal networks, and one-off negotiations. Iorns believed this friction slowed science itself and even contributed to the reproducibility crisis, and that a marketplace could make outsourcing experiments fast, transparent, and standardized.

Science Exchange came through Y Combinator's Summer 2011 batch with a compelling "Uber for science" framing: post the experiment you need, get matched to vetted providers, order and pay through the platform.^[7] Iorns paired the company with a scientific mission, later running the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, which reinforced the brand's credibility with researchers. The vision attracted strong investors and real usage. But as it moved toward its biggest potential customers — pharmaceutical and biotech companies — it met a procurement reality that a consumer-style marketplace couldn't fully serve, and the product had to change to match it.

Timeline

• 2011: Science Exchange founded by Elizabeth Iorns, Dan Knox, and Ryan Abbott; joins Y Combinator (S11).^[1]
• 2012–2017: Grows a marketplace connecting researchers to CROs and labs; raises toward $77.6M total.^[3]
• Mid-2010s onward: Evolves toward enterprise supplier-orchestration software for life-sciences R&D procurement.^[4]
• Sept 30, 2024: Acquired by Waud Capital Partners.^[2]
• 2025: Founders Iorns and Knox step aside; Iorns continues to advise.^[6]

What They Built

Science Exchange started as a two-sided marketplace: on one side, scientists at universities, biotech, and pharma who needed experiments run; on the other, contract research organizations and specialized facilities offering thousands of services. A researcher could find a provider for a specific assay or study, request quotes, order, and pay — with the platform handling discovery, transactions, and some standardization.^[1]

As it pursued large pharmaceutical customers, the product deepened into enterprise supplier-orchestration software. Big pharma doesn't buy experiments off a spot market; it manages a roster of qualified suppliers under contracts, with strict compliance, procurement rules, payments, and data requirements. Science Exchange built software to orchestrate that — onboarding and qualifying suppliers, managing contracts and payments, ensuring compliance, and giving R&D and procurement teams a system to run outsourced science at scale.^[4] The open-matching, liquidity-driven marketplace gave way to a workflow-and-compliance platform wrapped around relationships pharma already had.

Market Position

Target Customers

Science Exchange ultimately centered on large pharmaceutical and biotech R&D organizations that outsource significant experimental work — high-value, compliance-heavy enterprise customers.

Market Size

Life-sciences R&D outsourcing is a very large market, but the buyers are relatively few, sophisticated, and slow-moving, and they buy through procurement, not a consumer-style marketplace.