30 Apr 7 Questions for BioInspira Founder Ray Chiu
By Saemmool Lee
Po Jui (Ray) Chiu, co-founder and CEO of BioInspira, was named among Forbes 30 under 30 in Energy for 2019. A CITRIS Foundry company, BioInspira is a material sciences and Internet of Things (IoT) startup that leverages bio materials to build highly accurate and low-cost chemical sensors for real-time detection of air chemicals. Founded in 2014, the company is headquartered in Berkeley and has a fully owned subsidiary in Taipei, Taiwan.
Originally from Taiwan, Chiu earned a bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University in 2012 and a Master of Engineering degree from Berkeley in 2014. Chiu says he knew nothing about running a company when he started his entrepreneurial journey. BioInspira has been grown with the support of the CITRIS Foundry, the in-house incubator of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute. Now the company has 19 full-time employees and raised $5.5 million in funding so far. It plans to officially launch its products in June.