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A Sydney-based venture capital (VC) investor known for backing Frontier Pets has been involved in the buyout of assets from ASX-listed biosampling company Bluechiip (ASX: BCT) after it fell into administration earlier this year, describing its technology as the "gold standard" for cryogenic tracking in extreme cold environments.
"This could potentially be a billion-dollar company," says Damian Cullen, co-founder and president of a Las Vegas-domiciled entity called Cryonix, which was created in June and acquired the assets for $340,000.
"We're taking a known and trusted technology and scaling it globally. This is not just a turnaround - it's a launch."
Cullen, who sold his financial advisory business Cullen Private Wealth to Sterling Partners in 2018, set up Cryonix with fellow longstanding Bluechiip investor Mario Maio.
With global ambitions for Bluechiip, the pair decided the optimal structure for the new business would be to make the US subsidiary the head office, while the current Melbourne headquarters would become home to the Australian subsidiary.
After the Bluechiip board determined the company was either insolvent or likely to become insolvent, a voluntary administrator was appointed in March, but in the absence of a Deed of Company Arrangement (DOCA) it was resolved at a creditors' meeting in July that the company should be wound up.
A sale of Bluechiip's assets was thus finalised with no return to shareholders and "no real prospect" of a dividend being paid to unsecured creditors.
Cullen says the acquisition is part of a long-term strategy to build a global standard in biosample logistics, rooted in both technological precision and patient trust.
"We created Cryonix not just to acquire great tech, but to restore confidence in biosample handling," he says.
"Every vial, every sample in cold storage represents a person, a diagnosis, a family. The stakes are simply too high for system failure."
Founded in Melbourne, the company has pioneered micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) to monitor and trace biological samples in harsh environments such as those used for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) clinics, biobanks and research labs.
"There's no margin of error when it comes to biological samples. What used to be considered 'back-office operations' in biobanking is now front and centre in terms of patient safety and regulatory risk," Cullen adds.
"I've been an investor in Bluechiip since it was listed...I actually loaned the company some money last year when they were in trouble to try and get them through."
An agreement reached in December last year for a licence, development and supply agreement with US-based BioLife Solutions was critical in the Cryonix co-founders' due diligence for purchasing Bluechiip's assets.
"I've already spoken to the CEO there, and they're very keen to continue the relationship with Bluechiip," the new co-owner explains.
"If they hadn't committed, I probably would have questioned whether we would have done the deal, but they've committed to a research project where they're going to pay us $1 million over the next year to essentially incorporate Bluechiip into their line of products, and they'll sell those in the US in partnership with us.
He was originally attracted to the company based on the belief its technology should be used in all cryogenic solutions around the world, "because nothing else works".
"RFID (radio-frequency identification) doesn't work in those ultra-cold environments, and bar codes of course you can't read because they're all covered in frost as soon as they come out of the freezer," he says.
"The technology clearly the gold standard in this space. There have been problems with the execution, it's taken time. In biotech, things just don't happen quickly when you're dealing with particularly big labs.
"We've already got sales to five of the top 20 pharma companies in the world using the product, so it works, the feedback's great, we've just got to scale. I'm going to be very US-focused."
Cullen says Cryonix's acquisition effectively recapitalises, strengthens and repositions the business, which will continue to operate under its original brand but with enhanced distribution capabilities, technical resources, commercial knowhow, and new investment in development and innovation.
To do this the new owners are currently raising capital for an undisclosed sum, and Cullen claims Cryonix has already been approached about a partial sale.
The new co-owner concludes Bluechiip probably never should have listed in the first place, but the board put it on the ASX because they wanted access to the capital markets.
"They did a couple of outsourcing deals that ultimately fell over around COVID, so then the market lost its appetite," Cullen says.
"When they probably could have raised money, they didn't raise as much as they should have. When it got bad news and they went to the market, the market didn't support them.
"Then they had to go back to the market, and by that stage the market had lost all confidence and it was a downward spiral for death. So what we're doing is we're taking the company private.
"It's the same business model but we'll just run it more like a VC-type investment, so it'll be much more strategic, much more focused, it'll be a leaner team, and we'll raise some good money. We're just in the process of talking to fund managers to get the full amount that we need that will be the runway to get to cash flow-positive."
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