A small Durham company that stores biological samples for companies, university researchers and others has raised $400,000 from so-called angel investors.

Kryosphere, which also recently celebrated its second anniversary, stores millions of samples in massive freezers (thus the penguin images in its marketing materials). The company employs eight full-time workers and adds more part-timers as needed, said CEO and co-founder Eric Hallman.

"With automated systems, we're not going to be huge employers," he added.

The company is seeing increasing demand as biotech and pharmaceutical companies outsource sample storage to reduce the hassle and cost, Hallman said.