RainDance Technologies, the Billerica, MA-based company that provides tools used by research institutions and diagnostic companies, has canceled its planned $60 million initial public offering because of market conditions, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company said it might consider raising money through a private offering.
Funding is something RainDance has had no trouble locating. Since its inception in 2004, the company has raised about $160 million in equity and debt offerings, including adding $16.5 million last year. Investors have included GE Ventures, Northgate, Myriad Genetics, and Houston-based CRG, among others.
The company sells three products that are primarily used for genetic analysis in disease research. RainDance’s customers include top-tier research centers such as the Mayo Clinic and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and its largest 10 customers represented 76 percent of its $30.6 million in 2014 revenue, according to a regulatory filing. That revenue was up from $17.2 million in 2013, according to the document.
Investor Myriad Genetics accounted for 51 percent of that revenue in 2014, up from only 29 percent the year before. While still operating at a net loss, RainDance narrowed the loss in 2014 to $8.8 million, from $14.3 million a year earlier.
RainDance first filed for its public offering in late February, and seeking the public markets was an opportunistic move, it seems. “We have no current specific plan for the proceeds, and thus, have not quantified or allocated any specific portion of the net proceeds or range of the net proceeds to any particular purpose,” RainDance said in the filing.
Taking the company public has seemingly been on CEO Roopom Banerjee’s mind, though. When GE Ventures joined as an investor in March 2014, he declined to comment on whether it meant the company would seek an IPO, but noted GE Ventures’ experience in doing so.
“GE Ventures does have a track record of investing in companies that certainly have created a lot of shareholder value in the public markets,” Banerjee told Xconomy at the time.
The company declined to comment on the canceled offering.
