Exum Instruments

Exum Instruments, a Denver-based company founded in 2017, provides analytical instruments and software for materials characterization. The company was established by CEO Jeff Williams, whose background in cosmochemistry and geology revealed the limitations of traditional analytical tools. Frustrated by the complexity and cost of existing equipment, Williams left academia to develop more accessible technology. This journey began in a garage in 2018, where the first prototype was built, leading to the public launch of their flagship product at Pittcon in 2020.

Exum's core offering is the Massbox, the first commercial desktop instrument featuring Laser Ablation Laser Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (LALI-TOF-MS). This technology directly analyzes solid materials, removing the need for complex sample preparation like acid digestion. The system operates using a dual-laser process under a vacuum; one laser removes a small amount of material from a sample, and a second laser ionizes the resulting neutral particle cloud. This method offers high sensitivity and reduces the matrix effects and spectral interferences common in other techniques, allowing for the quantitative analysis of nearly the entire periodic table, from lithium to uranium.

The business model centers on the sale of the Massbox instrument and its accompanying software ecosystem. Revenue is generated directly from these sales. The company serves a diverse client base that includes national laboratories, defense labs, and private industries such as advanced manufacturing, battery research, aerospace, and metallurgy. The Massbox is designed to be user-friendly, with a compact footprint and an intuitive interface akin to a smartphone, enabling rapid quality control, failure analysis, and research and development without requiring a specialized Ph.D. operator. Following a Series A funding round, Exum has been scaling its operations and recently entered a distribution agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific to expand its reach in Europe and China.

Keywords: materials characterization, LALI-TOF-MS, mass spectrometry, solid sample analysis, elemental analysis, Jeff Williams, Massbox, chemical mapping, trace element detection, analytical instruments, battery research, metallurgy, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, quality control, failure analysis, research and development, scientific instrumentation, direct solid analysis, dual-laser ionization