Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based genetic sequencing technology provider backed by genomics technology producer Illumina and pharmaceutical company Amgen, has attracted £29.3m ($38.5m) in funding from undisclosed new and existing investors.
In addition to the primary funding, the company’s shareholders divested approximately $106m of shares, $28.9m being sold by commercialisation firm IP Group which now owns a 16.4% stake.
The secondary transaction also included shares divested by defunct investment firm Woodford Investment Management and its Woodford Patient Capital Trust, now under the stewardship of asset management firm Schroders, which had held a 12% stake in Oxford Nanopore.
Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore has created real-time DNA and RNA sequencing technology that provides biological analyses of samples of any read length at relatively low cost.
The platform is available in both portable and larger-scale form factors for applications including cancer research, environmental monitoring, supply chain inspection and microgravity biology.
Oxford Nanopore has now raised a total of approximately $632m in funding, closing a $206m round in late 2018 featuring $66m from Amgen and additional capital from investors including China Construction Bank, GIC and Hostplus.
Investment fund GT Healthcare led a $126m round for the company in 2016 that included IP Group, Woodford Investment Management and unnamed new and existing backers, coming after $109m from IP Group and undisclosed additional investors the previous year.
Illumina had invested $19m in Oxford Nanopore in 2009 and took part in a $41m round also featuring Lansdowne Partners, IP Group, Invesco Perpetual and Redmile Group in 2011. Its other earlier backers include Odey Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual and Top Technology Ventures.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Ventures.