Guardion

Market position

Guardion describes a $15B instrumentation market spanning mass spectrometry, residual gas analyzers, leak detectors and radiation sensors, and plans to target first the mass spectrometry market it sizes at $6B and projects to reach $15B by 2030. The underlying detector market is described as $750M today, growing to $1.1B by 2030. The company positions itself as a component supplier displacing electron multipliers before moving up-stack into complete portable instruments.

Guardion's stated differentiation is the substitution of 2D material-based charge sensors for traditional electron multipliers, enabling ion detection at ambient pressure and low voltage. The company claims roughly 1,000,000x amplification with 10,000-fold lower voltage, open-air operation, and wafer-scale fabrication, which together remove the vacuum systems and high-voltage hardware that constrain conventional analytical instruments and introduce common failure modes. Redundancy through multiple addressable amplifiers in a smaller footprint than a single electron multiplier is also cited.

Technology

The core technology is a 2D material-based charge sensor for ion detection that operates at ambient pressure and low voltage, claimed to provide about 1,000,000x amplification with 10,000x less voltage while working in open air and being fabricable at wafer scale. Related expertise areas include 2D nanomaterials research, charge-amplifying sensors, wafer-scale microfabrication, mass spectrometry detector development, and optoelectronic and electrochemical devices. The company has also explored the role of microgravity in the synthesis of 2D materials.

Go-to-market

Initial commercialization is through partnerships with established analytical instrument manufacturers, supplying Guardion detectors as upgrades or retrofits for existing instruments in order to validate the technology and build credibility. The company plans to follow with its own portable instruments. Non-dilutive government programs (NASA, Air Force and NSF SBIR awards) and accelerator/commercialization programs such as Techstars, MassChallenge, the MIT Engine Blueprint program and NSF I-Corps have supported this path.

Established analytical instrument manufacturers seeking detector upgrades, plus end markets in point-of-care medical diagnostics, real-time environmental monitoring, manufacturing and bioreactor inline analysis, semiconductor and biochemical manufacturing, space and planetary science (NASA), and defense and first-responder chemical, biological and radiological threat detection.

Geography

Guardion, Inc. is located at 151 S Bedford St, Burlington, Massachusetts, in the United States. Its research roots are at Northeastern University in Boston, and it has received Massachusetts-focused support through the MassVentures START program.

History

The company originated as a spin-out of research conducted in Professor Yung Joon Jung's mechanical and industrial engineering lab at Northeastern University, initially supported by National Science Foundation ECCS and PFI grants. In 2017 it won a $50,000 prize at the MassChallenge Accelerator Program and a $550,000 grant through the CASIS-Boeing Prize for Technology in Space. In November 2020 it was named one of six winners of the inaugural NASA Science Mission Directorate Entrepreneurs Challenge. Subsequent recognition and funding include NASA SBIR Phase I and Phase II awards, an Air Force SBIR Phase I award, an NSF SBIR Phase II award, MassVentures START Stage 1, the MRS iMatSci Innovations Showcase, the Air Force-sponsored Techstars Autonomous Accelerator, selection as an MIT Engine Blueprint Team, and selection for the NSF National I-Corps program.