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    January 7, 2022

    2021
    Annual
    Review

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    What a year 2021 was! In the backdrop of prolonged uncertainty, Labforward has emerged stronger than ever.

    Last year saw many successes. We launched Labregister, our built-in inventory management system, updated the Labfolder ELN’s user interface to give it a fresh, clean look and built the Connectivity Space in our Berlin office. Looking back, we have a lot to be proud of in 2021 and it’s all been possible due to the trust our customers place in us. Take a look at some of our biggest achievements of last year along with a sneak preview of what’s on our roadmap for 2022!

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    As the new year begins, I think back to where we were a year ago and I immediately become excited to find out what 2022 holds. As a company, we have grown significantly in the past year. Not only in terms of team size, but also in the capabilities of our products and connections with other industry leaders. In a year born out of uncertainty, Labforward was able to achieve incredible successes, we built a fully-functioning smart lab in our office space, we participated in events such as LIMS forum, Future Labs and smartLAB Connects, increased and strengthened relations with our partners, and of course continued to support our customers with all of their research requirements.

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    Simon Bungers, CEO and Co-Founder of Labforward

    Last year we’ve seen firsthand that more laboratories than ever are embracing the opportunities that going digital creates. With the significant advantages for data management, compliance and team collaboration, it’s not surprising that more laboratories in industry, academia, in R&D and QC fields and governmental sectors are opting for Labfolder. That is why we are constantly developing more features to ensure that our ELN meets the requirements of various sectors and makes research documentation as easy and as hassle-free as possible!

    2021 was a big year for our laboratory inventory management system (LIMS), Labregister ; not only did we launch the product early last year, but we also hit the ground running. Our team implemented many features that’ll ensure optimal oversight and management of all laboratory materials and items. LIMS is becoming an essential tool for laboratory teams and with the existing integration to the Labfolder ELN, Labregister facilitates and encourages compliant material storage and documentation.

    Navigating through undiscovered territory can be challenging, especially with our laboratory execution system (LES), a solution that many people aren’t familiar with. However, Laboperator keeps getting better and better, paving the way for laboratory automation and monitoring that can utilize existing equipment. Researchers can plan and execute their experimental workflows with Laboperator allowing them to manage their laboratory devices remotely, whilst collecting and analyzing instrument data in real-time, significantly improving productivity and precision of research.

    Team

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    FREELANCE
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    NEW HIRES

    In order to achieve the company’s goal of connecting the laboratory environment, it is essential that Labforward remains connected from within. To ensure this, the HR department has been working continuously to make the company environment comfortable, positive and one that encourages creative thinking and continuous learning. Ultimately, if our employees are happy at work this reflects in our products, so ensuring a positive company culture is always a top priority.

    In the year just gone, with so many people joining our team and with our new hybrid working model that allows our employees to work from either our office or from home, it’s been especially important to make sure that we continue to build working relationships so our team works effectively and efficiently. One of the big projects the HR department undertook was the Office Redesign Project where the objective was to make the office environment a warm and welcoming place to work, ready for the new hires.

    Our team also encouraged and helped each department organize team-building events in person during the time of the year that it was possible so that the new members could get to know everyone within their immediate team. From escape rooms to paddle-boarding to Berlin Urban Jungle Tours- these experiences provided an opportunity for the team to bond which was especially important after the lockdowns had limited our social interactions.

    Product & Engineering

    Our Product & Engineering teams have been focused on further integration between our products. The efforts of the year culminated in the Connectivity Space which showcases the use of all of our products to facilitate planning, preparation, execution and documentation.

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    Compliance is an integral aspect to consider when planning and executing workflows. That is why last year we placed emphasis on implementing Laboperator features that facilitate standardized and compliant research execution. For example, the ‘Change Reason Field’ for workflows introduced early in 2021 allows users to configure fields in a Workflow and change its parameters. If a previously entered value needed to be altered, the user is able to justify this modification, thus providing a compliant process to capture and track change requests.

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    Shortly after, we implemented electronic signatures that allow supervisors and other stakeholders to review completed workflows. For many laboratories together with a comprehensive full audit trail this represents the core functionalities to ensure compliance standards. Altogether, in 2021 Laboperator made great improvements on standardizing regulatory processes within the software product, and can therefore be considered GMP-ready.

    These are just some of the updated features within Laboperator from 2021 and there is certainly more to come in the new year!

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    2021 for Labfolder was all about building on existing features and ensuring our customers have the best possible experience with our product. The year got off to a great start when we released an improved version of the Table element, complete with a large amount of useful functionalities. In order to make the transition from other table applications smoother, we’ve implemented many similar features to Excel. It also includes many options for editing data, adding graphs and formatting!

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    Possibly the biggest, most notable change we made to our Electronic Lab Notebook last year was the User Interface update that gave Labfolder a fresh new look. By improving the user interface, we continue to facilitate data entry and project organization within our ELN, whilst maximizing user productivity and ensuring that our user experience is consistent across all Labforward products. In response to the new update, one of our customers commented that “the new Labfolder UI is much more clear and shows dimensions in a better way”.

    Whilst 2021 is a hard act to follow, we have many exciting new ideas for features and updates in 2022, so stay tuned!

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    Since releasing Labregister early in 2021, the product has continued to go from strength to strength. Originally known as Labfolder’s “Material Database”, we recognized that inventory management requires its own product. It’s still seamlessly integrated into Labfolder ELN, but we’re implementing new and exciting features that make it more appealing as a stand-alone product.

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    The updates to Labregister this year have focused predominantly on facilitating clear, compliant and consistent records of everything pertaining to a laboratory material or item. Our first release allowed our users to create barcodes for lab materials and equipment, then record and visualize them as code 128 or data matrix type. Barcodes act as a compact way of storing relevant information, so with this new feature our customers can streamline how their materials are managed.

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    Later in the year we introduced a new file attachment feature that allows users to attach images, pdf, word and excel files to inventory items. This update enables comprehensive oversight of lab materials by ensuring that all inventory-related documents can be stored in a central location. Then, just in time for the holidays we released a new relationship attribute that enables our users to link multiple inventory items to each other and define a parent or child relationship as appropriate.

    In the new year we will continue our work implementing features that’ll simplify lab material management, facilitating compliance and transparency!

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    Compliance

    Last year, as a company we placed a strong emphasis on compliance. We kicked off 2021 to a great start launching the Labforward Quality Management System (QMS) in January. The QMS is based on the internally recognized ISO 9001 principles and it comprises policies, procedures and work practices. Later in the year we were audited and consulted by external Data privacy experts to ensure that we’re always up to date with data privacy and compliance as a company.

    Throughout the year we also dedicated time to designing an internal procedure for validation of in-house products. We successfully implemented this into our Laboperator connector box software in line with these procedures and the industry best practices. Finally, we also successfully completed the 4-part ISO audit, becoming certified as an ISO 9001:2015 company in November 2021.

    Customer Success & Sales

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    LABFOLDER DEMOS

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    LABFOLDER DEALS

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    LABOPERATOR DEMOS

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    LABOPERATOR DEALS

    Our Customer Success and Sales teams had a busy year onboarding new customers, holding demos and ensuring that the users of all our products have everything they need with Labforward. In 2021, we closed 67 new customers for the Labfolder ELN advanced version. For Laboperator, we initiated many new projects with our large accounts that are pushing our LES to the next level and into the regulated environment. Throughout the year we’ve continued to hold webinar sessions and training, so our customers can experience our products to their full potential.

    “Personally, I can feel the right flow in our collaboration. That's why it's also important to me that we get together quickly on special projects and thus stay on the ball. There is enormous potential for the future here on both sides.”- Matej Barbic, project manager of the Daiichi Sankyo project -
    “I think Labfolder is the best ELN that I've ever seen.”- Happy Customer -
    ``I think our lab will find this very useful. I had no idea that this feature even existed. This is great!``- Happy Customer -
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    TRAININGS HELD

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    Where we’re heading:

      • > In 2022 our Labfolder ELN team will prioritize building upon our existing documentation capabilities with the aim to specifically improve our export capabilities along with our storage and filtering options. With the overall goal of offering more flexibility to our users, particularly QC laboratories.
      • > Meanwhile, our Labregister team will focus on the item lifecycle in the new year, looking to expand on opportunities to develop storage functionalities so users know where an item is kept. Moreover, our team will look to implement audit trail features for items and categories within Labregister.
      • > Finally our Laboperator team’s goals for the initial part of the year are all about ensuring GxP compliance. We’re looking to implement roles-based account control to ensure the efficient management of roles and groups within Laboperator along with audit trail advanced filtering.
      • > Thus, our overall Labforward goals are to firstly listen to our customers and deliver on the most wanted features for our products, and enable our users to tailor their solutions to meet their specific research requirements. To connect our products so they work together seamlessly. And finally to continue to evolve our products, creating a strong foundation of functionalities that our customers can use to take their research to the next level.

    With our Connectivity Space in place, an increasing number of relations with other leaders in the field, and a growing team dedicated to providing the best possible user experience, we are more prepared than ever to deliver our aims and achieve our wider vision of connecting the laboratory environment. We’re looking forward to everything 2022 brings!