BioNano Raises $53M to Identify “Structural Variations” in Genome

BioNano Genomics CEO Erik_Holmlin (BioNano image used with permission)

[Corrected 11/24/14, 12 pm. See below.] San Diego-based BioNano Genomics, which has taken a fundamentally different approach to analyzing the genome, says today it has closed on $53 million in Series C financing to expand its commercialization efforts in North America, China, and Europe.

Legend Capital, a Beijing-based venture fund affiliated with Lenovo’s controlling shareholder, led the round with the Novartis Venture Fund. They were joined by two other new investors, Federated Kaufmann Fund and Monashee Investment Management, and existing investors Domain Associates, Battelle Ventures, and Gund Investment.

“We’re delighted to have a Chinese financial partner who can help us chart the waters there,” CEO Erik Holmlin said by phone. BioNano sold its high-throughput Irys System to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing just over a year ago, and Holmlin said Legend will be “an amazing partner as we begin expanding our footprint in China.”

At $53 million, the round amounts to one of the largest private financing deals in the U.S. life sciences sector this year. Including the round, the company has raised a total of roughly $92 million since BioNano moved to San Diego three years ago as part of a turnaround.

BioNano does not use the short-read, next-generation genome sequencing technology employed by San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ILMN]]) or ThermoFisher Scientific’s Carlsbad, CA-based Life Technologies business.

Erik Holmlin
Erik Holmlin

Conceptually speaking, next-gen sequencing is comparable to assembling a jigsaw puzzle with tens of millions or hundreds of millions of pieces. In constrast, Holmlin said, “We’re putting the jigsaw puzzle together with really large pieces.” BioNano’s Irys System does not produce the resolution that comes with sequencing every DNA base pair, but Holmlin said, “all the functional components are going to be in the right place.”

BioNano’s Irys System uncoils DNA molecules into long contiguous strands that are tagged with fluorescent enzymes at specific sites and drawn by an electric current into proprietary “nano channel” arrays, where they are aligned for high-resolution imaging. The resulting images of tagged DNA molecules are converted into digital data.

BioNano says its technology makes it possible for

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.