Oxford Nanopore Technologies Raises £109.5 Million in Funding to Advance Nanopore Sequencing Technology

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on January 2, 2010, local time, Oxford-based biotechnology company Oxford Nanopore Technologies announced that it had raised a total of £109.5 million (equivalent to $144.4 million) through new capital investments and additional share issuances.

The UK-headquartered privately held company stated that, to date, it has raised £29.3 million in capital and sold £80.2 million worth of shares. In a separate statement, Oxford Nanopore Technologies noted that its investors include both new and existing shareholders from the United States, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, other details, including how the company plans to use the proceeds, were not disclosed.

Regarding financing, representatives from Oxford Nanopore Technologies stated that they had raised approximately £480 million. In October 2018, the company announced that Amgen would hold a £50 million equity stake, representing about 3% of the company at the time, implying a valuation of £1.5 billion.

In July 2019, Oxford Nanopore Technologies announced that its annual revenue for 2018 was $43.7 million, up from $17.8 million in 2017. In a tweet following the announcement, Clive Brown, Chief Technology Officer of Oxford Nanopore Technologies, suggested that the minimum investment amount in the company should be kept at around $20 million.

Upon completion of the transaction, IP Group (LSE: IPO), a developer in the intellectual property business, will hold a 16.4% undiluted beneficial interest in Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Oxford Nanopore Technologies is the sole manufacturer of DNA/RNA sequencers capable of real-time sequencing of next-generation sequencing (NGS) reads of arbitrary length. Its long-read sequencing technology can scale seamlessly from compact, portable formats to larger instruments designed for population-scale sequencing. The directors anticipate that this transaction will generate approximately £12 million in fair value gains for the Group compared to Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ previous financing round in March 2018, with the Group’s shareholding valued at around £264 million. As the second component of the transaction, IP Group will receive £22 million in cash through a partial sale of its shares in Oxford Nanopore Technologies.

“We are delighted to see Oxford Nanopore Technologies successfully raise funds once again, marking a successful conclusion to the commercial validation and technological verification of nanopore sequencing,” said Alan Aubrey, CEO of IP Group. “IP Group continues to focus on realizing value from its increasingly mature portfolio this year. We are pleased to report that cash exits in 2019 were more than double those in 2018, positioning the business with ample funding and a strong footing heading into 2020.”

(Compiled by Ning Chen)