Clustermarket

Calira formerly known as Clustermarket is a cloud-based lab operations and equipment booking platform specifically designed for life-science research facilities, core labs and shared instrumentation centres. Formerly known as Clustermarket Bookkit (or simply Clustermarket), the company rebranded to Calira in 2025 to reflect a broader mission of optimising Research & Development (R&D) lab operations beyond mere equipment scheduling. 

Who it serves & how

Calira serves lab managers, core-facility administrators, LabOps teams, R&D departments in biotech/pharma, and academic research labs. Its core use-cases include:

• Booking and managing access to shared instruments or equipment (microscopes, sequencers, high-throughput robots). 
• Tracking utilisation, downtime, maintenance and instrument lifecycle, enabling data-driven decisions about asset investment or retirement. 
• Integrating with other lab systems (e.g., electronic lab notebooks, asset sensors) and generating reports/analytics for resource planning and budgeting.
  For labs with shared instrumentation or restricted resources, Calira can help streamline scheduling, reduce conflicts, improve equipment utilisation and justify investments.

Key features & value

• Booking calendar & workflow rules: Define users, instruments, approval rules, billing schedules. 
• Usage analytics & reporting: Monitor how often equipment is used, by whom, maintenance events and availability. 
• Integrations: With ELNs or other lab-IT systems, and potential links to sensor/asset-monitoring hardware for real-time status. 
• Scalable roles: From small academic groups to large commercial R&D labs (with major clients cited in press release). 

Considerations

• Licensing and cost: While reviews mention a starting price (e.g., US $150/year for basic versions) in certain markets, full enterprise features will cost more and need evaluation for local currency/regional labs. 
• Implementation and change-management: Introducing formal booking and reporting processes may require staff training and adaptation of lab practices — smaller labs may find initial setup a bit of overhead.
• Integration with existing systems: The value increases when Calira is linked with other lab IT systems, if a lab is still working manually, some benefits may remain untapped.