Laboritel

Laboritel is a privately held company founded in 2013 in Karlsruhe, Germany, that specializes in the design and manufacturing of portable laboratory equipment for on-site scientific and industrial use. The company’s founding team, composed of former chemists and engineers from the Max Planck Institute and a startup incubator, identified a growing need for compact, battery‑powered analytical tools in environmental monitoring, food safety, and industrial process control. Their initial product, the Laboritel MiniLab, was a handheld spectrometer capable of performing infrared, Raman, and UV‑Vis analysis within minutes. The device was built around a microcontroller architecture that allowed for custom software modules to be uploaded via a USB connection, and its small form factor (under 300 g) made it popular among field researchers.

Laboritel’s product portfolio expanded in 2016 with the release of the Laboritel FlowStation, a modular system that integrated flow‑cell spectroscopy and liquid chromatography in a single, stackable unit. Subsequently, the company introduced a line of app‑controlled smart sensors for atmospheric gas analysis. In 2019 the firm announced a partnership with the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program to develop smart diagnostic tools for trace metal detection in contaminated soils. The company’s technologies have been cited in over 80 peer‑reviewed journal articles and are used by several European universities for teaching and research.

Despite commercial success, Laboritel has faced scrutiny over its data‑privacy policies, particularly regarding cloud storage of analytical results. In 2021 the company revised its data‑handling guidelines, implementing end‑to‑end encryption and offering an offline mode for data collection. Laboritel continues to focus on innovation in portable analytics, aiming to expand its market into biotechnology and the emerging field of precision agriculture.