Amadeus Capital Partners has bought a stake in the University of Oxford spinout through a secondary transaction, valuing it at around $2.4bn.

Venture capital firm Amadeus Capital Partners has paid $24m to acquire shares in Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based DNA sequencing technology spinout of University of Oxford, in a secondary transaction. The deal valued Oxford Nanopore at roughly $2.4bn, according to the Telegraph, which said Amadeus had bought into the spinout this way after missing out on a previous round. Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore is working on a genetic sequencing-derived analysis technology that can be applied to any living organisms. Its lead product, MinIon, is a nanopore DNA sequencing tool for fields including education, scientific research, pathogen control, environmental monitoring and food chain quality management. The company most recently raised $108m in October 2020 from pension fund manager RPMI Railpen and new and returning backers including diversified holding group International Holdings Company, which lifted the overall funding to approximately $800m. Oxford Nanopore previously closed a $98.1m round in May 2020 across two tranches featuring undisclosed investors, with the Telegraph identifying internet group Tencent as a participant. Commercialisation firm IP Group, pharmaceutical firm Amgen, genomics technology provider Illumina and financial services firm China Construction Bank are also among the company’s shareholders, as are GIC, GT Healthcare, Hostplus, Invesco Perpetual, Lansdowne Partners, Odey Asset Management and Top Technology Ventures.

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Edison Fu

Edison Fu is a reporter and Asia liaison at Global Corporate Venturing.