The University of Oxford DNA processing spinout tapped a consortium of unnamed investors in a round which also includes $106m in secondary funding.
Oxford Nanopore, a UK-based genetic sequencing technology spinout of University of Oxford, attracted £29.3m ($38.5m) of funding on Thursday from undisclosed new and existing investors in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Existing investors additionally sold $106m in a secondary transaction, including $28.9m in shares sold by commercialisation firm IP Group, which now owns 16.4% interest at a valuation of around $347m.
According to the Telegraph, the secondary element included 12% disposed by defunct investment firm Woodford Investment Management and its Woodford Patient Capital Trust, now under the stewardship of asset management firm Schroders.
IP Group anticipates a fair value gain of about $15.8m from the transaction compared with its position at Oxford Nanopore’s last funding round in March 2018.
Previous reports suggested Oxford Nanopore hoped to assemble about $2.1bn in a planned private placement, though this was never officially confirmed.
Founded in 2005, Oxford Nanopore has devised a real-time DNA and RNA sequencing technology that provides biological analyses of samples of any read length and at relatively low cost.
The platform is available in both portable and larger-scale form factors for applications including cancer research, environmental monitoring, supply chain inspection and microgravity biology.
Oxford Nanopore extends research by Hagan Bayley, professor of chemical biology at University of Oxford.
The spinout has now raised a total of approximately $632m in funding, having previously set its sights on a potential initial public offering.
Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC, Australian superannuation fund Hostplus and financial services firm China Construction Bank contributed to a $140m round in March 2018 together with unnamed investors, before drug developer Amgen added $66m in an extension that October.
Oxford Nanopore had previously closed a $126m funding round in 2016 led by investment fund GT Healthcare with participation from IP Group, Woodford Investment Management and unnamed new and existing backers, after raising $107m the previous year from IP Group and assorted unspecified investors.
Other investors in the company include genomics company Illumina, which supplied $18m in 2009, as well as Odey Asset Management, Invesco Perpetual, Top Technology Ventures and Lansdowne Partners.
