Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based genetic sequencing technology developer backed by genomics technology producer Illumina and pharmaceutical firm Amgen, secured £84.4m ($108m) in funding today.
The capital came from a consortium including pension fund manager RPMI Railpen and new and existing investors including diversified holding group International Holdings Company.
Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore produces DNA and RNA sequencing technologies used for medical research and diagnostics in addition to applications in environmental, plant and animal science.
The company’s technology is able to sequence nucleic acid samples of any length by passing ionic currents through protein nanopores. Its products include a rapid test for detecting Sars-Cov-2, the coronavirus that leads to covid-19.
The round brought Oxford Nanopore’s total funding to roughly $800m. It boosted its most recent round to $98.1m in May this year when unnamed investors provided a $59.6m extension to a $38.5m tranche in January 2020.
The January deal was announced alongside the secondary sale of $106m in shares, including $28.9m offloaded by commercialisation firm IP Group.
Oxford Nanopore had closed a $206m round in October 2018 when Amgen added $66m to an initial $140m secured from financial services firm China Construction Bank, GIC, Hostplus and undisclosed existing investors seven months earlier.
Investment fund GT Healthcare led a $126m round for the company in 2016 with participation from existing backer IP Group, the since-collapsed Woodford Investment Management and unnamed new and existing investors.
Oxford Nanopore’s other existing investors include Illumina, which supplied $18m in 2009, as well as Odey Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual, Top Technology Ventures and Lansdowne Partners.
Image courtesy of Oxford Nanopore Technologies. The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.