Cortado Ventures has closed a Pre-Series A investment with an innovative analytical instrument company. Headquartered in Denver, Exum Instruments brings high-performance, solid-sample chemical characterization out of the traditional laboratory environment. The funding milestone was closed alongside Alchemy Capital.

Exum builds instruments and software ecosystems to increase the speed of materials development and discovery, offering easy access to high performance at a low cost. Exum's first instrument, the Massbox, is the first Laser Ablation Laser Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (LALI-TOF-MS) on the market, capable of analyzing any solid sample you can throw at it-precisely, rapidly, and inexpensively.