Oxford Nanopore has continued its funding streak with another $108m, bringing this year's haul to more than $208m and its overall total to around $800m.

Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based genetic sequencing technology spinout of University of Oxford, obtained £84.4m ($108m) in funding today from a consortium including pension fund manager RPMI Railpen. The deal was backed by a group of 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 offering includes a rapid test for detecting Sars-Cov-2, the coronavirus that leads to covid-19. Oxford Nanopore’s technology is able to sequence nucleic acid samples of any length by passing ionic currents through protein nanopores. The approach limits the need to manually stitch together shorter samples that conventional sequencers produce – a process known as variant calling. Oxford Nanopore will use the funding to promote R&D and to expand its manufacturing and commercialisation capacity. The capital brought Oxford Nanopore’s total funding to some $800m. Oxford Nanopore lifted its most recent round to $98.1m in May 2020 after a $59.6m extension backed by unnamed existing and new investors. The initial $38.5m tranche in January 2020 also involved unnamed participants. The January 2020 deal was announced alongside the secondary sale of $106m in shares, including $28.9m offloaded by commercialisation firm IP Group. Oxford Nanopore had previously closed a $206m round in October 2018 when drug developer Amgen injected $66m, adding to an initial $140m secured in March 2018. GIC, the sovereign wealth fund of Singapore, backed the first tranche together with superannuation fund Hostplus, financial services firm China Construction Bank and unnamed existing investors. Investment fund GT Healthcare led a $126m round for Oxford Nanopore closed in 2016 with participation from IP Group, the since-collapsed Woodford Investment Management and unnamed new and existing investors. IP Group had already supplied cash as part of a $107m round in 2015 that also attracted unnamed backers. Oxford Nanopore’s other existing investors include genomics company Illumina, which supplied $18m in 2009, as well as Odey Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual, Top Technology Ventures and Lansdowne Partners.

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