New genomics platform company to change the definition of sequencing

PLEASANTON, Calif., (BUSINESS WIRE) — 10X Genomics, a provider of an innovative genomics platform, today announced that it has raised $55.5 Million in its Series B financing.

Foresite Capital Management led the B round and was joined by the Series A lead, Venrock, as well as new and existing investors, including Paladin Capital Group and funds managed by Morgan Stanley Investment Management. To date, the company has raised a total of more than $80M.

“10X Genomics’ innovative, orthogonal approach makes use of the current installed base of sequencers to fulfill the promise of Next Generation Sequencing,” said Bryan Roberts, Partner at Venrock. “The company has made amazing progress and, in 2015, will allow customers to realize a decade’s worth of promises based on fundamentally and holistically advancing the field of sequencing.”

The Company is led by founder and CEO Serge Saxonov, PhD, a founding architect of 23andMe, along with the company’s other founders, CSO Ben Hindson, PhD, and CTO Kevin Ness, PhD, all of whom previously were senior executives at Quantalife, Inc. Along with Chairman John Stuelpnagel, DVM, a co-founder and the first CEO of Illumina, the Company has assembled a management team of seasoned veterans of the genomics and sequencing industries.

“I am excited to be working with such a passionate, multidisciplinary team as we advance our technologies in high throughput picoscale reaction systems and computational genomics,” said Dr. Saxonov.

10X Genomics is commercializing a new genomics platform that will change the definition of sequencing. While bringing unprecedented access to sequence data, current sequencing technology leaves a significant amount of critical genetic information inaccessible. 10X Genomics’ platform complements and upgrades existing short read sequencers to deliver long-range contextual information, including haplotyping, structural variation, and de novo assembly.

“The genome is complex and much of this complexity is lost or inaccessible using available sequencing technologies,” said Dr. Stuelpnagel. “I am excited about the platform that 10X Genomics has developed which captures this important genomic information, thereby increasing the value of sequencing.”

Dr. Saxonov will present at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on January 14, 2015. 10X Genomics will unveil its innovative genomics platform at Advances in Genome Biology & Technology (AGBT) in February.

ABOUT 10X GENOMICS

10X Genomics is changing the definition of sequencing by providing an innovative genomics platform that dramatically upgrades the capabilities of existing short read sequencers. The Company does this through a combination of elegant microfluidics, chemistry and bioinformatics. With the 10X Genomics platform, researchers can now find structural variants, haplotypes, and other valuable long range information while leveraging existing sequencing workflows.

SOURCE: 10X Genomics

Chempetitive Group for 10X Genomics
Kena Hudson, 510-908-0966
khudson@chempetitive.com