23andMe, the US-based genetics services provider received $250m in a round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital last week, at a $1.5bn pre-money valuation. Financial services group Fidelity Management & Research (FMR) also took part in the round, as did family office Euclidean Capital, investment firms Altimeter Capital and Casdin Capital, and research support organisation Wallenberg Foundation.
23andMe operates a consumer genetics service allowing users to send a DNA sample for analysis, in order to find out if they are more susceptible to certain health conditions or discover information about their ancestry.
23andMe had previously received substantial corporate backing from a variety of investors. In 2015, the company closed a $115m series E, which featured Alphabet’s venturing subsidiary GV and WuXi Healthcare Ventures, the venturing arm of pharmaceutical research firm WuXi PharmaTech, as well as genomics technology provider Illumina. Pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson had participated in its $31m series C round in 2011, through its Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation unit.
23andMe is part of the broader genetics and gene therapeutics space, which has received much attention by corporate investors over the past few years. The number of corporate-backed rounds went up significantly between 2013 and 2015 – from 15 deals worth an estimated total of $372m to 56 deals worth over $2.24bn. The deal count, however, went down somewhat in 2016 and so did investment level – down to $2.11bn. Despite the slight drop, the genetics space still appears as one of the most promising in terms of potential medical breakthroughs in both the near and far future.
