Illumina Ventures, the strategic venture capital firm formed by genomics technology provider Illumina, increased the size of its first fund from $100m to $230m on Monday.
The firm launched in April 2016 with $100m from Illumina, before raising the rest from undisclosed corporate, sovereign, institutional and individual investors. The fund had reached $189m in size by April this year, according to a regulatory filing.
Although Illumina Ventures is managed independently from Illumina, its focus areas – genomics and precision medicine – are similar to the corporate’s field of expertise. It has invested in seven companies since beginning operations.
The companies in question include biotech startup Kallyope, DNA synthesiser Twist Bioscience and Biota Technology, a DNA sequencing technology developer that had not previously disclosed any funding.
Nicholas Naclerio, Illumina Ventures’ founding partner, said: “The investor interest in this fund exceeded my expectations and will allow us to expand our team and support a greater number of entrepreneurs.”
Francis deSouza, president and CEO of Illumina, added: “The rapid advances in genomics are creating tremendous entrepreneurial opportunities across industries from novel therapeutics, diagnostics and research tools to food security and synthetic biology.
“We invested in Illumina Ventures because we believe Nick and his team are uniquely positioned to identify, nurture and accelerate the most promising entrepreneurs in genomics.”