After closing three separate funding rounds throughout 2020 that, all together, totaled more than $300 million, Oxford Nanopore Technologies is well on track to make 2021 even bigger.
Just a few weeks after announcing its plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange in the second half of this year, the U.K.-based company, which develops genetic sequencing technology, has raised another £195 million, or about $271 million.
The round was split between new and existing investors. New backers including Temasek, Wellington Management, M&G Investments and Nikon contributed about $174 million, while existing shareholders made up the rest of the sum. Among these was the IP Group, which holds a 14.5% stake in Oxford Nanopore and said it had committed $26 million to the round.
The new financing brings Oxford Nanopore’s total funding since it was founded in 2005 to more than $1.1 billion. According to Reuters, the company is now valued at about $3.44 billion.
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Like its previous funding rounds, Oxford Nanopore’s latest will likely go toward accelerating the development and commercialization of its sequencing technology as well as covering the costs of filing its IPO.
The company's platform, which it says is the world’s first and only for nanopore sequencing and capable of analyzing a single molecule of DNA or RNA at a time, has been used to classify brain tumors, sequence chromosomes and other “dark regions” of the genome as well as to track the spread of foodborne outbreaks and infectious diseases.
Most recently, Oxford Nanopore has directed many of its resources toward the development of its LamPORE diagnostic test for COVID-19. The test, which has received a CE mark for use in Europe, returns results after 35 minutes with 99.1% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity.
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The rapid development and commercialization of the LamPORE assay drove much of Oxford Nanopore’s success in 2020. After kicking off the year with a $144.5 million financing at the beginning of January, the company began applying its technology to researching the COVID-19 pandemic and creating a fast-acting diagnostic test for the coronavirus, resulting in another $59.2 million haul in May.
Then, in October, after the LamPORE test had received its CE mark, Oxford Nanopore closed yet another funding round, this one totaling more than $111 million.
Next up: The London Stock Exchange, where Oxford Nanopore will go public later this year. The IPO is expected to value the company somewhere between £4 billion and £7 billion, or about $5.6 billion to $9.7 billion.