DNAnexus Raises $15 Million, Collaborates with Google
October 18, 2011
By Rahul Arora, TMCnet Contributor
DNAnexus, a DNA data management and analysis platform, has raised $15 million in second-round funding, led by Google (News - Alert) Ventures and TPG Biotech. Also participating in the round of financing were First Round Capital, SoftTech VC, K9 Ventures, and Felicis Ventures.
As a result of the financing, the DNAnexus board has added two new members – Krishna Yeshwant, M.D. and partner at Google Ventures, and Geoff Duyk, partner and managing director at TPG Biotech.
According to officials from the company, DNAnexus will use the funds to expand its operations, and unlock the potential of DNA-based medicine and biotechnology by creating scalable and collaborative data technologies.
Working toward its mission, the company has also entered a technological collaboration with Google Inc. to provide access to the most comprehensive archive of publicly available DNA data through a hosted Sequence Read Archive (SRA) site.
“We are at a pivotal time in the field of genomics, with data growing exponentially,” said Andreas Sundquist, CEO, DNAnexus, in a press release. “In less than five years, the cost of DNA sequencing will be on par with the cost of other routine lab tests, bringing it in reach of almost everyone in the developed world.”
He continued, “DNAnexus will bring together the data and the tools to allow the medical and biotech community to extract meaning. We are thrilled to be working with premier life sciences and technology investors TPG Biotech and Google Ventures, and excited to expand our technology team and our products designed to help power the genomics revolution.”
Yeshwant said, “At Google Ventures, we're passionate about tackling the world's most challenging and important problems. Our investment in DNAnexus is a manifestation of that belief. Their vision of revolutionizing the field of bioinformatics is extremely compelling, and has the potential to change DNA management and analysis. Our experience working with large and complex data sets makes us truly enthusiastic about both the SRA collaboration with Google and the Google Ventures investment.”
In other news, DNAnexus, Inc. recently announced the availability of a comprehensive set of new informatics tools that enable life science researchers to efficiently analyze and manage large-scale genomic variation datasets in a cloud-based workflow.
Rahul Arora is a TMCnet contributor. He has worked as an editor and freelance writer for several reputed organizations in India. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell