In April-May 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had already caused severe damage to the global economy, while disrupting social interactions and destroying millions of lives. During those times of utter chaos and panic, the world was in dire need of an early-diagnostic system that could help in rapid screening of the disease. By then, research had already established the fact that COVID-19 caused metabolic changes in the infected system, leading to the release of disease-specific volatiles. Bees can be trained to learn and differentiate between volatiles within few hours, while the detection can be done within few seconds.

Via a mutual friend in the search of an experienced Dutch entrepreneur familiar with the start-up ecosystem and an Industrial Design Engineer, Aria and Leon met each other. This was the start of InsectSense. They decided to explore and apply insect behaviour as a relevant solution in solving the global challenges posed by the pandemic. The solution was to provide a rapid and yet accurate screening device that could detect and diagnose the disease effectively.

First we started with honey bees for rapid testing, called Dr.Bug. Based on market feedback, we started developing LumiNose. This is a chip technology that mimics sensing mechanism of insects, allowing us for a more scalable solution for the market.