The investment and collaboration are subject to certain conditions, including one that specifies VisiGen must receive an additional investment from SeqWright, an existing shareholder.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
In early October, after months of industry speculation, ABI disclosed it has been developing its own next-generation sequencing instruments and said today it will still work towards this goal.
"Applied Biosystems plans to complement its internal investments in new and existing sequencing technologies with promising next generation approaches, such as VisiGen's," Catherine Burzik, president of ABI, said in a statement.
VisiGen, based in Houston, is developing a real-time sequencing system in which polymerase and nucleotides act together as direct molecular sensors for DNA base identification.