Press release: Oxford Nanopore announces £31.4 million ($50.8 million) fundraising

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, a privately held company that is developing a disruptive technology for the real-time electronic analysis of single molecules, today announced that it has raised £31.4 million ($50.8 million) in new funding via a private placement of ordinary shares in the Company.

"This round of funding, nearly all of which comes from existing investors, will support a range of corporate development activities including the development of our commercial infrastructure, expansion of our manufacturing function and further R&D for our DNA/RNA sequencing and protein/miRNA analysis applications. We will also continue to maintain our leadership position in nanopore innovation through maintenance and expansion of our broad intellectual property portfolio," said Dr Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore.

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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.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd is developing a novel technology for direct, electronic detection and analysis of single molecules using nanopores. The modular, scalable GridION technology platform and miniaturised MinION instrument are designed to offer substantial benefits in a variety of applications.

The Company's lead application is DNA sequencing which combines a nanopore with a processive enzyme for the analysis of DNA. Oxford Nanopore is also developing a Protein Analysis application that combines target proteins, aptamers and nanopores for direct, electronic analyses of those target proteins. These nanopore sensing techniques are combined with the Company’s proprietary electronics-based GridION and MinION systems. The Company also has collaborations for the development of solid-state nanopores.

Oxford Nanopore has collaborations and exclusive licensing deals with leading institutions including the University of Oxford, Harvard and UCSC. The Company has funding programmes in these laboratories to support the science of nanopore sensing. Oxford Nanopore has licensed or owns more than 350 patents and patent applications that relate to many aspects of nanopore sensing from protein nanopores to solid state nanopores and for the analysis of DNA, proteins and other molecules. This includes the use of functionalised solid-state nanopores for molecular characterisation, methods of fabricating solid-state nanopores and modifications of solid-state nanopores to adjust sensitivity or other parameters.

This transaction brings the total funds raised since the Company's foundation in 2005 to £105.4 million.