Press release: Oxford Nanopore announces £70 million ($109 million) fundraising
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, the UK-based technology company that has designed and produced the world’s first DNA sequencer based on nanopore sensing, making it commercially available in 2014, has raised £70 million ($109 million) in new funding through a private placement of ordinary shares. Both new and existing investors in the UK, US and mainland Europe subscribed to the fundraising to support the Company’s development and commercialisation of electronic molecular analysis systems.
Funds will be used to support improvements to the Company’s existing range of products and services and to further develop and expand its innovative pipeline. Manufacturing and commercial activities will be expanded.
This transaction brings the total funds raised by the company to £251 million.
Note: The placement of ordinary shares in the Company under this fundraising does not constitute an offer of the Company’s shares to the public. No shares in the Company will be offered or sold to any person except in circumstances which have not resulted and will not result in an offer to the public.
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Contact: Zoe McDougall, Communications. media@nanoporetech.com
About Oxford Nanopore Technologies
Oxford Nanopore Technologies is developing and commercialising a new generation of nanopore-based electronic systems for analysis of single molecules, including DNA, RNA and proteins. The handheld MinION™ device, the high-throughput/high sample number PromethION™ and the GridION™ system are designed to provide novel qualities in molecular sensing such as real-time data streaming, improved simplicity, efficiency and scalability of workflows and direct analysis of the molecule of interest. The devices may be used in scientific research, personalised medicine, crop science, security and defence and environmental applications and a number of applications, methods and tools have been published by MinION users. Products and services are priced for low total-cost-of-ownership DNA sequencing (or other analyses). Oxford Nanopore is developing or providing products and services to simplify all parts of the nanopore-based molecular analysis workflow. For sample preparation this includes VolTRAX, a rapid, programmable, portable, disposable sample preparation device designed to convert complex samples such as blood, saliva or environmental samples directly onto a nanopore sensing device. For analysis this includes Metrichor, a cloud based service for real time molecular analyses, vertically integrated with nanopore sensing devices. MinION is commercially available and registration has opened for the PromethION Early Access programme (PEAP).
Supported by a broad patent portfolio, the Oxford Nanopore pipeline includes multiple generations of nanopore-based sensing technologies, including those based on both biological and solid-state nanopores.