Maker of stop-bleeding solutions Axio Biosolutions eyes expansion

A personal experience with a bike accident changed how life turned out for bio-engineering student Leo Mavely. Now the chief executive officer of Axio Biosolutions, a Bangalore headquartered healthcare startup, which has a manufacturing facility in Ahmedabad, Mavely’s company makes a sponge-like biomaterial that stops profuse bleeding from wounds within minutes.

The trauma care and device company that makes this proprietary material called Axiostat (absorbable haemostatic dressing), which has so far sold around 100,000 units since 2014. With its new facility, and an eye on entering new verticals, Axio Biosolutions hopes to sell around 20 million pieces in the next five years.

Axiostat, the haemostatic dressing, uses chitosan, a naturally occurring material extracted from shellfish. The product, which looks like a dry sponge, immediately attaches itself to the open wound and it acts like an adhesive seal that not only stops blood from leaking but also protects the wound from external infections for around 48 hours. 

While the army is its biggest customer, the other verticals are hospitals and emergency trauma care services like ambulances. As Mavely explains, they are now in talks with cab aggregators to keep such haemostatic dressing kits in all of their cars. This, if comes through, it would increase the market by a few hundred thousand units per year. This apart, there are plans to enter the industrial segment as well, Mavely says.

“These kits can help to provide immediate medical care in case of factory accidents. This is a new vertical that we are looking at entering," he adds. The firm is coming up with a kit.  “We plan to have this at schools, colleges, cabs, cars. We are starting to pilot this in January, and would first start with a few thousand kits for industrial use, as we see an immediate demand there,” Mavely explains.

In next two years the company sees demand for 1 million units in the country and claims that its new facility in Ahmedabad (which started commercial production in September this year) will be able to meet demand. 

“Our current plant has capacity to expand to 5 million units,” he says. Globally, the market is about $ 2.2 billion. At the moment, there are no direct competitors for Axio Biosolutions in India, Mavely claims, adding that globally around four or five companies make solutions to stop profuse bleeding.

Axio exports to around 12 countries across the globe, and around 40 per cent of its turnover comes from exports. 

Axio Biosolutions is not looking at a presence in the Indian retail space at the moment. "We estimate that the overall demand in India over the next five years will be around 20 million units, just operating in the four verticals that we are present in now,"Mavely says.

While he did not wish to share details on the quantum of funds raised by his firm and the current turnover, Mavely said Axio Biosolutions had raised seed capital from Ahmedabad-based venture capital firm GVFL and Series A funding last year from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures. There are plans to raise a Series B round of funding in the coming months as the Indian market shows potential to grow to $100 million in the next three to five years.