Metropolitan Acoustics branches out
24/08/2023
A 30-year-old acoustics company has started to provide hardware and software as a service (SaaS) product SenSV that allows life science companies to monitor the vibration, audible sound and ultrasonic sound levels of a laboratory space.
When Felicia Doggett started Metropolitan Acoustics in 1990, she could not have pictured herself developing a new tech start-up more than 30 years later.
The company, which she founded in her late 20s, provides sound and vibration monitoring services to buildings. Building owners may want to know the vibration patterns of their space for a variety of reasons, for example if a space is going to be turned into a theatre or used for sports practices. The company also provides ‘sound modelling’ for spaces and Live Nation, for example, is a client. However, in 2017, the company started receiving more requests from the growing life sciences sector in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
A life science company that will perform trials or use very specialised equipment has very specific needs. Even the slightest vibrations can interact with an experiment using mice or equipment such as scanning electron microscopes. The slightest movement can make images blurry or throw off the routine of testing animals.
“It is kind of a combination of a lot of things happening at the same time. Buildings were being built with lighter-weight materials, so they move more easily,” said Felicia. “And there are a lot more buildings with laboratories being built in city centre areas where there are subways and freight trains and all that other stuff.”
These conditions, coupled with the pandemic push for more life sciences, meant there was a growing need for acoustics work. Felicia’s team began work on what is now called SenSV, a hardware and software environmental monitoring device for laboratories.
The device is placed in a space and sends data concerning vibration, audible sound and ultrasonic sound to a digital platform.
The device and its software are meant to provide a fuller picture of the environment throughout a 24-hour cycle. How does an early morning train or rubbish pick-up affect the vibrations of the environment?
Felicia’s team at Metropolitan Acoustics consists of 14 people, including those who are working on SenSV full time. They are currently generating revenue from their prototype out in the field, but they have recently received a $50,000 (approximately £39,000) grant from the JVS Fund. They have also recently applied for a National Institute of Health grant that will go towards technology that will monitor environmental factors in laboratories.
The last piece of technology they have been working on is putting the platform on the cloud with secure access. Once that is done, they will have a sellable SaaS product and will spin SenSV out on its own.
More than three decades later and now in her late 50s, Felicia said she feels she is ‘bookending’ her career: “I am kind of just starting a whole new tech company so, I kind of feel like I’m bookending my career. When I started the consulting company, I never would have thought that at my age I would have started diving into a whole tech start-up thing. But here I am, and I will tell you it is a lot of fun.”
