Wansheng Gene Secures Tens of Millions in Pre-A Funding from Northern Light Venture Capital to Lower Barriers in Single-Cell Sequencing
VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that Wancheng Genomics, a company dedicated to developing comprehensive solutions for high-throughput single-cell sequencing, recently announced the completion of its Pre-A financing round, raising tens of millions of RMB. The round was exclusively invested by Northern Light Venture Capital. It is understood that the funds will primarily be used to promote Wancheng Genomics’ independently developed liquid microfluidic single-cell sequencer and its accompanying multi-omics reagents, as well as to expand the scope of its high-throughput single-cell sequencing services.
Wancheng Genomics was established in February 2018. By leveraging droplet microfluidics technology, which offers greater operational convenience, enhanced equipment functionality, and expanded reagent compatibility, the company has built the Wancheng Genomics Platform featuring internationally advanced high-throughput single-cell multi-omics technologies. Over the past three years, Wancheng Genomics has made concerted efforts in both upstream instrument and reagent development and downstream application development.
On one hand, Wancheng Genomics has completed the development of an engineering prototype for its droplet microfluidics-based single-cell sequencer, with user testing scheduled for the first half of 2021 to streamline the pre-processing workflow for high-throughput single-cell sequencing. On the other hand, leveraging its independently developed platform and adhering to the philosophy of elevating single-cell analysis from a laboratory technique to a standardized, industrial-grade product, Wancheng Genomics has comprehensively launched high-throughput single-cell sequencing reagents for multi-omics applications—including transcriptomics, epigenomics, and proteomics—to meet the diverse needs of basic scientific research, clinical medicine, and industry.
Professor Shi Weiyang, founder of Wancheng Genomics, expressed his sincere gratitude to investors for their recognition of the team’s technology-driven development path, and thanked the team for their unwavering dedication, noting that reaching today’s milestone was no easy feat. “Our goal is to benchmark against 10x Genomics by developing a domestically produced, comprehensive high-throughput single-cell sequencing solution, while surpassing them in multiple key technologies.”
Deng Feng, Founding Managing Partner of Northern Light Venture Capital, stated, “We believe that bioinformatics analysis at the single-cell level represents the future direction of biological research. Single-cell sequencing provides molecular-level information from individual cells and holds immense potential in scientific research, clinical practice, and industrial applications. In this technology-driven industry, Wancheng Bio has accumulated a portfolio of multi-omics products with international competitiveness over the past few years. We are confident that Wancheng Bio will become a globally competitive company and will certainly drive the application and clinical translation of single-cell sequencing technologies.”
In 2020, accompanied by several rounds of substantial financing, high-throughput single-cell sequencing began to move out of the laboratory and into the spotlight for a broader range of industry stakeholders. Unlike current mainstream genetic testing technologies, which can only obtain macro-level information from bulk cell populations, high-throughput single-cell sequencing technology targets individual cells, enabling the identification of subtle differences between cells and providing deeper, more precise information for basic scientific research and clinical applications. High-throughput single-cell sequencing is also regarded as the most promising direction for future development in genetic testing.
However, this new technology, which was first applied to embryonic development research in 2009, still incurs relatively high costs, and its technical maturity requires further improvement; consequently, it has not yet achieved large-scale adoption. According to incomplete statistics, fewer than 20,000 high-throughput single-cell sequencing samples were collected nationwide in China in 2020, with over 80% being used for basic and clinical scientific research, while applications in new drug development accounted for 10%–20%. Professor Shi Weiyang predicts that the proportion of non-research scenarios, primarily in the biopharmaceutical industry, will see substantial growth in the application of high-throughput single-cell sequencing in the future.
In 2019, Nature Methods named single-cell multi-omics technology as the “Method of the Year,” signaling that multi-omics profiling would be the future direction of single-cell sequencing technologies. Each additional omics layer sequenced enriches single-cell scientific data with a new dimension; integrated analysis of multiple omics datasets holds promise for uncovering key novel insights and enhancing the value of research outcomes. On the other hand, the onset and progression of clinical diseases often involve coordinated changes across multiple omics molecules. Acquiring multi-omics information at the single-cell level will provide opportunities for deeper understanding and intervention in disease. However, a key bottleneck in the application of single-cell multi-omics is the limited availability of commercial omics products, with only 10x Genomics offering a small portfolio of multi-omics solutions.
A core capability built by WanCheng Genomics is the development of high-throughput single-cell multi-omics reagents and services. Currently, WanCheng Genomics can perform high-throughput single-cell sequencing for transcriptomics, genomics, ATAC-seq, methylation, ChIP-seq, proteomics, and immunoprofiling. Among these, methylation sequencing, ChIP-seq, and intracellular proteome sequencing are products not offered by 10x Genomics.
Furthermore, as different omics sequencing modalities require distinct sample formats, the integration of multi-omics data has objectively expanded the scope of samples applicable to high-throughput single-cell sequencing, and to some extent, simplified sampling and pre-processing procedures. “Whether for end-user researchers or mid-stream testing service providers, although both rely on instruments for sequencing, reagents are the key enabler of high-throughput single-cell sequencing,” pointed out Professor Shi Weiyang. “Our droplet microfluidics instrument platform can be paired with various omics reagents, demonstrating a differentiated advantage over foreign brands. This is also a significant reason why many high-end users choose WanCheng Genomics.”
In addition to upstream instruments and reagents, Wancheng Genomics continues to build competitive advantages by providing secondary development services for downstream applications. For most users, high-throughput single-cell sequencing is an unfamiliar and complex technology. To address this, Wancheng Genomics offers specialized secondary development services that help users transform general-purpose high-throughput single-cell sequencing reagents and equipment into tools tailored to solve specific problems in scientific research, clinical practice, or industrial applications.
Over the three years since its founding, the team and operational management at Wancheng Genomics have become increasingly mature. According to Professor Shi Weiyang, following a period of exploration from 2018 to 2019 and further enhancement in 2020, Wancheng Genomics has established clearer responsibilities across its R&D, service, marketing, and management teams. The teams have also developed efficient collaborative synergy, enabling them to join forces and rapidly drive the development and execution of service projects.
In the future, Wancheng Genomics will continuously optimize and develop its high-throughput single-cell multi-omics sequencing capabilities, enhance its capacity to deliver professional services for high-end applications, and gradually expand its touchpoints and service scale for industrial clients.