[4][5] Commercial contract research organizations (CROs) and academic core facilities can sell their products and services directly through the marketplace.

[6] Science Exchange was founded in 2011 by Elizabeth Iorns, Ryan Abbott, and Dan Knox, taking part in the startup accelerator program Y Combinator in the summer of 2011.

[2][3][7][8] In 2011, as an assistant professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Iorns came up with the idea for Science Exchange after needing to conduct immunology experiments, but having difficulty finding potential collaborators or providers to work with.

[9][10] Iorns formed Science Exchange with Knox and Abbott, and the company applied for a place in the Y Combinator startup accelerator program.

[21] On 30 July 2013 Science Exchange launched a program with reagent supplier antibodies-online.com, based in Aachen, Germany, to independently validate research antibodies.