What Biobot Analytics does

Biobot Analytics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based wastewater epidemiology company that operates the largest US wastewater intelligence network, sampling hundreds of treatment facilities across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, US territories, and tribal territories. Its platform combines nationwide sampling logistics, molecular lab analysis (including genomic sequencing for SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A/B), and an AI-driven predictive analytics layer branded Biobot Advance to deliver weekly ZIP- and county-level data on more than 50 health trends spanning respiratory, gastrointestinal, and arboviral pathogens (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, RSV, influenza A/B, HMPV, mpox, norovirus, H5N1) and an expanding panel of substances (fentanyl, xylazine, methamphetamine, cocaine, benzodiazepines, naloxone, and other opioid and stimulant classes). Data is delivered through the secure explore.biobot.io dashboard, CSV downloads, and API keys, with a published turnaround of 3–5 days from sample collection to insight.

Biobot monetizes through four streams: (i) recurring state and local government subscriptions (e.g., Allegheny County, PA at $47,000/year for weekly substance surveillance, used to allocate ~$7M in opioid settlement funds), (ii) pharma and life sciences subscriptions to Biobot Advance, including API access for clinical trial site selection, real-world evidence, sales targeting, and programmatic media activation (anchored by the Pfizer/The Trade Desk use case), (iii) programmatic media data licensing via DSP integrations, and (iv) multi-year, multi-million-dollar federal contracts and grants with HHS/CDC, NIH/NIDA, and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Go-to-market is sales-led enterprise (B2B/B2G) with a "Book a Demo" motion, supplemented by self-serve dashboard access and an API-first integration path for technical buyers.

The company is venture-backed by Y Combinator, The Engine, DCVC, Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, and Hyperplane, among others, and has raised approximately $33.6M in disclosed equity to date. Biobot is recognized by TIME 100 Most Influential Companies and TIME 100 Best Inventions (2022), CNBC Disruptor 50 (2022), and GovTech Top 100 (2019–2024), and its fentanyl-detection work was validated in a peer-reviewed Nature Water publication (2024). It operates with 11–50 employees from its Cambridge, MA headquarters and a Colorado-based laboratory.

Name

Biobot Analytics

Legal name

Biobot Analytics, Inc.

Website

https://biobot.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Biobot Analytics operates the largest US wastewater intelligence network, analyzing weekly samples from hundreds of sites for 50+ pathogens and substances, and selling predictive health data and AI-driven forecasts to federal/state governments, pharma, and life sciences customers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Wastewater Epidemiology Intelligence

NAICS

Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories (6215)

SIC

Services-Medical Laboratories (8071)

akta.pro primary industry

Wastewater & Environmental Pathogen Surveillance (HLAJABAI)

akta.pro secondary industries

Population Health Surveillance & Epidemiologic Analytics (HLAJAJAB), Modeling, Forecasting & Risk Assessment for Outbreaks (HLAJABAM), Public Health Genomics & Sequencing (WGS/Metagenomics) Networks (HLAJAIAK)

Keywords

• Wastewater epidemiology
• Public health intelligence
• Disease surveillance data
• Substance use monitoring
• Population health analytics

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Operations, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Wastewater Monitoring Subscriptions (State & Local Government): Recurring annual contracts for ongoing wastewater surveillance covering sampling logistics, lab analysis, and access to data dashboards. Public reference pricing: Allegheny County, PA pays $47,000 annually for weekly surveillance of fentanyl, xylazine, ketamine, and medetomidine in the regional drug supply.
2. Pharma & Life Sciences Data Subscriptions (Biobot Advance): Subscription or licensed access to Biobot Advance predictive wastewater intelligence for pharmaceutical and life sciences customers, including ZIP/county-level forecasts, hotspot identification, clinical trial site selection, R&D and real-world evidence support, and API integration for downstream use cases.
3. Programmatic Media Data Licensing: Integration of Biobot's regional disease trend data into demand-side platforms (DSPs) such as The Trade Desk for precision targeting of advertising campaigns. Powers pharma direct-to-consumer and clinical trial recruitment campaigns with measurable uplifts in click rate, visit action, and coupon download.
4. Federal Government Contracts and Custom Analytics: Federal contracts and grants (HHS, CDC, NIH/NIDA SBIR, ONDCP) covering nationwide wastewater surveillance, custom reporting, lab analysis, and program evaluation. Multi-million-dollar, multi-year engagements with program-specific deliverables.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Biobot Analytics operates a wastewater-based epidemiology platform that collects samples from hundreds of US wastewater treatment plants, performs molecular and genomic lab analysis, and delivers privacy-preserving population-level intelligence on 50+ health trends (respiratory, gastrointestinal, and arboviral pathogens plus opioids, stimulants, and treatment medications). Customers access weekly ZIP-, county-, and national-level data and predictive forecasts through interactive dashboards, CSV downloads, and an API, supporting government biosecurity, public-health surveillance, and pharmaceutical commercial and clinical-trial use cases.

Product overview

Biobot Analytics operates a single integrated wastewater intelligence platform composed of several named offerings: the core Biobot Wastewater Intelligence Platform (which analyzes more than 50 health trends including respiratory pathogens, gastrointestinal pathogens, arboviruses, opioids, stimulants, and treatment medications) sits at the center, with the customer-facing Biobot Explore dashboard/API portal as the access layer, Biobot Advance as the AI-driven analytics module for Pharma & Life Sciences customers, Biobot Risk Reports as the public weekly surveillance publication, and segment-specific solutions for Federal Government, State and Local Government, and Wastewater Treatment Plants that tailor the same underlying platform to each customer type.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Biobot Advance: An AI-driven predictive analytics offering for pharmaceutical and life sciences customers, built on the world's largest wastewater dataset to provide geographically granular disease activity forecasts.

Products and services

• Biobot Wastewater Intelligence Platform Core platform providing real-time, privacy-first population-level wastewater intelligence across more than 50 health trends, including respiratory, gastrointestinal, and arboviral pathogens plus opioids, stimulants, benzodiazepines, and substance-use treatment medications. Accessible via secure dashboards (explore.biobot.io), CSV downloads, map visualizations, and API.
• Biobot Advance AI-driven predictive analytics product offering a predictive, geographically granular view of disease activity for pharmaceutical and life sciences customers. Used to accelerate clinical trial site activation and enrollment, generate real-world evidence for R&D, target sales and marketing spend, and feed programmatic media campaigns. Exposes ZIP- and county-level weekly data with predictive hotspot forecasting via dashboard, CSV, and API.
• Biobot for Federal Government Federal-government focused offering that strengthens national security and biosecurity by providing real-time, nationwide wastewater intelligence for population health, emerging-threat detection, and substance-use surveillance. Weekly data is available for every US ZIP and county, with API/CSV/map access for integration with CDC, HHS, DoD, and other federal frameworks.
• Biobot for State and Local Government State and local public-health offering providing early, community-level wastewater intelligence for outbreak detection, emergency preparedness, program evaluation, and overdose-risk monitoring. Allows jurisdictions to compare local data with regional and national trends and receive tailored alerts by pathogen or geography.
• Biobot for Wastewater Treatment Plants Offering for wastewater treatment plant partners that turns existing infrastructure into a community health intelligence network. Provides sampling kits, logistics, lab analysis with 3–5 day turnaround, data dashboards, customizable alerts, and reporting for population health, substance use, and substance-use-disorder treatment monitoring.
• Biobot Explore (Customer Dashboard & API Portal) Secure online portal where customers log in to access Biobot's interactive dashboards, generate and manage API keys for automated data access, download CSV files, and explore ZIP/county-level wastewater intelligence.

Quantifiable outcome

• Detects shifts in fentanyl use 15 months ahead of traditional overdose reporting systems
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles5 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.

• White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 7 January 2026Awarded a contract in January 2026 to deliver nationwide wastewater intelligence on substance use trends, covering more than 20 chemical targets including opioids, stimulants, and treatment medications. Builds on Biobot's prior work with NIDA (2020–2024). Data is used by federal and local officials to guide overdose prevention resources, identify drug trafficking hotspots, and enable earlier intervention.
• NIH/NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse)flagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 21 September 2023Phase III SBIR contract awarded in September 2023 for nationwide wastewater-based monitoring of drugs and overdose reversal agents. Analyzes wastewater from 70 communities for substances like opioids, stimulants, xylazine, and naloxone, informing public health interventions. Also funded a year-long pilot (September 2023–August 2024) analyzing weekly samples from 76 locations across 41 US states, serving approximately 20 million people, with peer-reviewed findings published in Nature Water.
• HHS (US Department of Health and Human Services)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerPhase 1 and Phase 2 of the National Wastewater Monitoring Program (May–August 2021). Biobot processed more than 4,800 wastewater samples from 318 wastewater treatment facilities across all 50 states, DC, 2 US territories, and 7 tribal territories, representing over 90 million people (27% of the US population). Biobot built a custom surveillance dashboard with de-identified data per HIPAA and CDC guidelines.
• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartner on the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS). Biobot's nationwide passive network provides the CDC with population-level data for tracking emerging infectious disease threats, including SARS-CoV-2, influenza A/B, RSV, HMPV, mpox, and norovirus.
• The Trade DeskcoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnology integration partner. Biobot's regional disease trend data is integrated into The Trade Desk's DSP for precision targeting of advertising campaigns, including Pfizer's flu vaccine trial recruitment campaign. Listed in Biobot's 'our partners' section on the homepage.
• State of MassachusettsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerState government partner with logo displayed in Biobot's 'our partners' section on the homepage, indicating a state-level public health partnership for wastewater-based disease monitoring.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Verily Life Sciences: Alphabet-owned life-sciences technology company that built and operated a nationwide wastewater surveillance network for SARS-CoV-2 during the COVID-19 emergency. Directly comparable to Biobot's HHS/CDC-era federal public-health wastewater intelligence offering, though Verily has broader ambitions across precision health and clinical research.
• GT Molecular: Specialized wastewater-based epidemiology lab offering RT-PCR testing services for SARS-CoV-2, influenza, RSV, and other pathogens to communities and utilities across the US. Directly competes with Biobot in the local and state public-health surveillance market with a similar lab-based service model.
• Luminultra: Provider of qPCR-based molecular testing kits and services for wastewater, environmental, and clinical pathogen detection. Comparable to Biobot's lab assay capability and target menu (pathogens, process monitoring), with a stronger international footprint in industrial and environmental water testing.
• Aqua Analytics: Wastewater epidemiology and environmental testing firm serving municipalities, utilities, and public-health agencies. Comparable to Biobot on the wastewater sampling, lab analysis, and reporting layer, though typically focused on smaller-scale municipal deployments rather than nationwide federal contracts.

Broad incumbents

• Ginkgo Bioworks (Concentric by Ginkgo): Public synthetic biology platform whose Concentric biosecurity business provides pathogen surveillance, including wastewater monitoring, for government and public-health customers. Comparable as a broader biosecurity incumbent with overlapping wastewater and pathogen intelligence capabilities, though Ginkgo's focus extends well beyond wastewater.
• Athelas: Healthcare data and diagnostics platform serving physician practices, payers, and pharma with point-of-care testing and analytics. Adjacent comparator to Biobot Advance's pharma commercial and clinical-trial use cases, sharing a similar SaaS-meets-diagnostics GTM into life sciences customers.

Regional players

• CSO Analytic: Italian wastewater epidemiology analytics company operating in Europe, providing population-level drug-use and disease intelligence similar to Biobot Advance. Highly comparable in methodology and use cases (opioids, stimulants, public-health agencies), but focused on European geographies where Biobot does not operate.

Emerging players

• Karius: Clinical infectious-disease diagnostics company using next-generation sequencing of blood samples to detect pathogens. Comparable to Biobot as a pathogen intelligence platform applying advanced molecular and AI methods to public-health-adjacent use cases, though Karius operates in clinical rather than wastewater samples.
• Color Health: Population-scale health testing and analytics platform offering infectious disease, genetic, and public-health testing infrastructure for employers, governments, and pharma. Comparable to Biobot's population-level health intelligence and federal/state contract positioning, though Color focuses on individual-level diagnostics rather than pooled wastewater sampling.

Others

• CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS): Public-sector surveillance program built in partnership with Biobot and other state and academic labs to coordinate nationwide wastewater monitoring for SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens. Not a commercial competitor per se, but a structural counterparty whose institutionalization and multi-vendor evolution directly shapes Biobot's federal pipeline.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/BiobotAnalytics
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/biobot-analytics

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds10 records

Investors25 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Biobot Analytics